quick bolt shortening tutorial

easy way to shorten a screw or a bolt without having to re-die the threads...

i never have the right length screws or bolts and am always needing to shorten them. here is a
trick. place the length to be cut off in the vise so you don't mangle the threads of the piece you
want. Make sure you have placed a wingnut or nut of some description on the end you wish to
keep. Later you wind this off to clean up the threads so you don't need to re-die the screwthread.

Step 1 Place nut or bolt on threads.

a wing nut is good, any nut will do. this will effectively by your die for cleaning up the threads.

Comments

[unaffiliatedperson]

if its small enough some wirestrippers also have small bolt cutters built into them

[ich bin ein pyro]

cool i did this in reverse and got a longer bolt =P

[sharlston]

impossible

[Suarve]

My son saw me doing this one day - my vice was broken (don't ask!) and I was using a pair of pliers to hold the bolt. He came up with the ultimate slap-head "doh!" moment when he suggested I put the bolt into my drill chuck instead.... works great especially if you're 'onsite' and don't have a vice handy but do have a drill

[threecheersfornick]

You might even be able to cut it by just spinning the drill and holding the saw steady. Also, thanks for the tip--I was trying to do this today, but holding the bolt with my feet didn't really work. I stripped it and now I have to get new ones. :(

[CaffeineHouse]

lol, i did that today while making myself a pocket PVC hacksaw (from another instructable)

[eviloverlord]

I've used a jigsaw with a metal cutting blade to shorten bolts with success before - much quicker than hand-sawing. Remember the vice/workbench and goggles though or you might lose an extremity or two.

[jridley]

You could use electricians pliers for smaller screws, but this method works on larger stuff as well. FWIW, this is exactly how my dad taught me to do it back in the 70's. A quick buff on a wire wheel on your benchtop grinder cleans the pointy bits up nicely as well.

[Coffee bean]

Or use a dremel.

[jeffroward]

You can also invest in a pair of electrician's pliers for handling smaller bolts- they have threaded holes through both parts of the jaws. You open the jaws, thread the bolt through, and then close the jaws again. Then, you unscrew the short bolt from the handles, and you're done! No matter how you shorten the bolt, though, make sure you deburr the end- nothing is worse than wrecking good threads... talk about a headache!

[unterhausen]

Jeff, I like your miterbox idea. I'll have to try it. What I like to do is take two nuts, screw them to the "keeper" side, and tighten them together so that their flats match. Then use the nuts in the vice to hold the bolt.

[jeff]

If you use *two* regular nuts (I guess you could use wing nuts if you face the wings out) and center them where you want to cut the bolt with just enough space between them to put the hacksaw blade, you will find it easier to get a straight cut across the threads. They act like a mini-miter box.

And to get a *really* nicely finished end (useful if you are going to be doing/undoing the bolt much), chamfer the end after you cut the bolt (a few swipes of a file or a couple seconds at the grinding wheel) and then unscrew the remaining nut. There will be just a slight burr left that you can file/sand off - and then the end of the bolt will be as good as factory finished.