Spare nuts, bolts and screws

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by dick sargent

Also remember to take spare hose clamps...all sizes.

Yes! Plenty of spare hose clamps. Find all sorts of uses for emergency repairs besides just clamping hoses. If you haven't seen these, highly recommend the AWAB brand. Better than your average clamp.

[Cheechako]

Fortunately I collected a lot over the years and most ny boats had far too much in SS and Bronze fasteners. Even so, if you need four of a particular size, you will have 3. Right now I have 2 drawers full from #4 to 1/2" SS.

[AJ_n_Audrey]

Lots of good advice here, so I'll just add you should have some 2x4 lumber aboard, as well some pieces of 2x6 & 2x8. I lash the 2x4's to the davits - doesn't look great but when my autopilot base sheared in half in the Bahamas, I had a way to build a temporary replacement. If you go this route, have a lot of bolts that are 4 inch long (as well as a few longer) and appropriate nuts & washers to allow you to bolt together the 2x lumber. Also 2.5 inch screws. The 2x8 board was a godsend as the replacement base for attaching the autopilot, and the 2x4's allowed me to stabilize the base in 3 dimensions. It held together for about 400 miles before I had to reinforce it. Now that I'm home I'll do something permanent.

[skipgundlach]

Start here to see some of my boat pix. We call this Dad's hardware store, and the mirror keeps it all in the slots while under way as well as adding light.

FWIW the overhead light is a 12V 4' lamp from Van Supply, I think I remember.

All the red lighting is rope lighting; the overhead is on a DPDT switch with center off, and the under-mirror lighting is a bullet switch from an automotive alarm company.

Pictures: Flying Pig Interiors

[skipgundlach]

Originally Posted by skipmac

Yes! Plenty of spare hose clamps. Find all sorts of uses for emergency repairs besides just clamping hoses. If you haven't seen these, highly recommend the AWAB brand. Better than your average clamp.

Clamptite makes a couple of clamp makers for anything you could want to clamp; we use ours all the time, with SS wire from .032 (but primarily .041) to black coat hanger diameter, whatever that is...

Our outboard mounts are secured with them, and we used the middle-sized one to make up the clamps.

https://clamptitetools.com/

[steve77]

Originally Posted by AJ_n_Audrey

Lots of good advice here, so I'll just add you should have some 2x4 lumber aboard, as well some pieces of 2x6 & 2x8. I lash the 2x4's to the davits - doesn't look great but when my autopilot base sheared in half in the Bahamas, I had a way to build a temporary replacement. If you go this route, have a lot of bolts that are 4 inch long (as well as a few longer) and appropriate nuts & washers to allow you to bolt together the 2x lumber. Also 2.5 inch screws. The 2x8 board was a godsend as the replacement base for attaching the autopilot, and the 2x4's allowed me to stabilize the base in 3 dimensions. It held together for about 400 miles before I had to reinforce it. Now that I'm home I'll do something permanent.

I agree with having pieces of lumber and marine plywood.

If we are going to mention other items the OP may want to bring, I was a little surprised how difficult it was to find tinned wire in Europe. Not saying it is impossible, but definitely not easy. I would bring plenty of spare wire in various sizes.

Cheers!

Steve

[TrentePieds]

TrentePieds is only a baby boat. So in the interests of maximizing the assortment of nuts'n'bolts than can be carried in a given space, in TP's case, in repurposed kitty-litter buckets, all such supplies are carried in Ziploc sandwich bags measuring 6 1/2 x 5 7/8 inches. Each bag carries a sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 paper folded to quarters and annotated with the spec of what it is it.

Sometimes a pain to have to "leaf through" all those bags, but it's a small price to pay for being able to carry the whole kit'n'kaboodle in one modest sized kitty litter bucket that lives in a cockpit locker. Cheap, light and effective.

Besides, culling fasteners from the little food-keeper where they get tossed while working is a lovely, mindless, but useful, task to keep you happily occupied below when it's typical Wet Coast weather :-)

TP

[Meacenas]

It would be a good idea to make a list of the items that people have posted here as important, going to the local Home Depot and spending a wad on money on heavy duty plastic containers. As the previous posters advised, get the obviously useful nuts, bolts, washers, screws and add to that the hose clamps. I would also add a few springs, keys, lock nuts, rubber washers, cotter pins, short lengths of threaded rod, bits of small chain, good twisties, eyebolts, hooks, a couple 3" muffler clamps and whatever else you can think of.
I am a real handyman sort, so I would add a few steel fishplates, angle plates, small sheets of rubber, metal, plastic and a small glassing set up for fabbing broken items from scratch, Keep a sheet of 1/2" ply cut to berth size, a small piece of plexi or lexan in the bottom of a drawer, a few sticks of wood and a couple short dowels here and there.
Occasionally you will also need, super glue, epoxy, rubber cement, 2 part JB Weld, a small tube of silicon sealant, stir sticks, cups..
The boat may sit a a little lower....just kidding, all this stuff will fit into a small space, I keep a small 3 drawer toolbox, that holds all this sort of stuff and a few tools. The most handy tool on the boat..a small cordless drill. It has a box with many types of drills, a saw blade attachment, a sanding.......

[hellosailor]

After many years of relying on a hellbox (a small bucket full of all the screws and nuts, called that because there's always something to jab you and provoke profanity) I migrated mainly to the plastic divided boxes, one metric, one SAE, etc. And learned that the CHEAP plastic dividers that often are sold pre-filled in the store? Are just that. Cheap. You can buy them for $4 sometimes, but a better more expensive box from Stanley or one of the other brand names will not crack at the hinges or latches, the way the cheap ones always do. Always.
And I find it is worth every cent to just be able to grab the box and see right away that I've got no 6mm bolts. Instead of sorting through the hellbox for twenty minutes, not finding one, running to the store, only to find...Oh, yeah, there's some in the bottom.
Yes, the boxes are bulkier, way bulkier. But you'll also save by buying an assortment up front (in which case you'll never need 90% of them) from someplace like Jamestown Distributors, a great source for stainless parts.

[zeehag]

mayonnaise jars work quite nicely for these items as well as hose clamps.
these mayo jars can be affixed via their plastic tops to a board with lag bolts and placed out of head banging way somewhere in your boat in a reasonable location for relocating later.
mayo jars are transparent so you need no writing on the jar for contents. easy peasy

[Stephen Fascian]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Take a hundred dollar bill to Lowe's or other home improvement store, buy a a half dozen cheap plastic storage boxes and go to the nuts and bolts section and buy 10 ea of everything you think you could possibly need in SS.
You have just bought at least $500 of hardware if you buy it in those marine kits

I find that Lowes SS fasteners are cheep Chinese JUNK! There are different grades of 316 SS. The stuff from Lowes will have rust stains in no time. Its ok to use belowdecks I guess but I wouldn't use them to bolt down a standchion. If I'm going to take the time to do the job it's worth the $$ to use high quality Stainless Steel fasteners from a marine store like Hamilton Marine or Defender.
Just my 2 cents

[bletso]

I buy most of my fasteners from McMaster Carr. I store them in old pill bottles and the bottles are stored in old coffee tins. Sorted by size they take up about an 18 X 18 X 18 space. It covers #4,6,8,10 and the odd 12 and 14 I need. I make do with about 40 different sizes of wood/plas screws. Machine screws are best bought long and then cut to length as mentioned.

[ArmyDaveNY]

In addition to the great suggestions already posted, check out the outlet section on West marine's website. They are getting rid of an amazing amount of stuff and there are great deals to be had, in particular on fasteners. The outlet section is in the top right of the website. When you get to the outlet section, type FASTENER into the search bar.

Here's one example:
https://www.westmarine.com/outlet/bu...2?recordNum=51

It is a 72 piece machine and tapping screw set for $3.66, originally sold at $13.99. The items are stainless steel (304 I think but am not sure). They are made in Communist China so they are not the highest quality but as Voltaire said, perfect is the enemy of the good, and these are good enough. I ordered three sets and found them to be reasonably decent. They sell sets as well as individual nuts, bolts, etc.

The individual stores aren't allowed to ship outside of the U.S. but if you order online or call, the corporate office does ship to other countries. The other option is to have someone you know pick them up and ship them to you.

[Captain Mark]

Also, do not forget spare wire of every possible gauge that you have on your boat and wire ties... cheap to get in the US, but can be expensive and hard to find off the "beat"en path!

[Cheechako]

I gave up on the compartment plastic boxes after the actual boat building was complete, you never have enough compartments anyway. Also they will come open easy (there are a few that are more secure) Aboard I ended up with wood/sheet metal screws in one big box and machine screws 1/4 and smaller in another. Specialty things in a compartmented case though.
Also:
A) buy no wood screws, get only sheet metal screws of the head configuration you want.
B) Buy no slot heads.