Knobs!

I'm having multiple issues with door knobs at the moment. On the back door of the house the screw holding the doorknob to the spindle has vanished leading to it parting company with the door with you stood outside. The knob is antique by the look of its design and construction and searching through the spares box for a replacement only gave only a single metric machine screw with a partial fit. It was OK for a patch to keep the thing from falling off every time it was used but wasn't a neat solution. A quick spot of caliper work suggested that a 4BA screw would probably be close to the correct fit in the absence of a thread gauge. Not letting the opportunity for a small tool purchase pass me by an order for a set of thread gauges for the major thread standards (imperial, UNC, BA, BSW) is waiting to go out.

So as The Major was heading past one of the local hobby stores I explained the requirements of the part to her and pressed the doorknob into her hand with instructions to obtain half a dozen cheese-head brass screws if they had them. She duly returned with half a dozen round-head BZP steel screws which were woefully short, and all for the princely sum of £2 (ie 33p each)!

Now I didn’t expect her to be able to work out what I wanted from my description (the only sure way would have been to go with her) but I assumed that the chap in the shop, when presented with a request for brass screws and the doorknob, would have been able to sort out the right thing if he had them. As it was it appears that he was more interested in making the sale then getting the right part. He's off the Christmas list then. I'll leave aside the outcome of leaving zinc and brass in close proximity outside. While I was after the last link I noted that the Wikipedia section on materials for Screw was a bit confusticated so I updated it putting in jappaning for a larf to see how long before someone tackles a link.

So back to shopping, eBay came up trumps with 10 screws for £2.90 inclusive of delivery and as I don't need 100+ that was the best price going. The company is GWR Fasteners. Just need to wait for them to arrive and tidy away the unwanted BZP screws for future use. More on the other problem when I get a round tuit (not looked on Amazon for one yet).