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[Bugsy]

Thought I'd share this.

I needed some M3 x 10mm bolts and all the ones I had to hand were too long.

I needed eight and knowing what a pain they can be to get then all the same and with a clean end I devised this 'cunning' plan  

Take a piece of scrap wood the thickness of the thread-length you need and drill a number of holes to match the diameter of the thread and the number of bolts you need.

Drilling the holes on the edge of the wood helps when you come to cut the excess off.

Push the bolts into the holes and clamp the wood into a vice with another piece of wood behind to hold the bolt-heads in place.

Carefully run along the bolts with a cutting wheel in your 'Dremel' and take all the excess off.

Push the bolts out of the wood and 'voila', perfectly cut bolts to the length you need.

If you take care cutting the threads will be perfect without resorting to filing.

Job done, cost nil.

Gary.

[dreadnought72]

It can help sort out the thread if you put a nut on the bolt before cutting it.

An option would be to bolt on nuts over the bolts on a slighttly thinner bit of wood so that the nuts outer edge mark the cutting surface?

Andy

[Bugsy]

The only problem with that Andy is that the cutting wheel rotation could spin the nuts off which has the potential to shatter the cut-off wheel.

You could always screw the nuts right up to the head of the bolt though, and use, as you say, a thinner piece of wood.

.

[CGAux26]

I will try your method next time I need to shorten a machine screw.  For very short finished lengths, how about a piece of styrene instead of the wood?  It comes in very thin sizes.

[boatmadman]

Put your bolt through the hole, add a washer on the free thread and tighten a nut onto it. Cut off the excess thread and finish with a file to flush with the nut. Then, remove the nut, remove the washer and replace the nut filed side in. This gives a consistent thread exposure equivalent to the thickness of the washer.

Ian

[Lord Bungle]

I normally put a couple on nuts on the bolt, 1 to the Length I want to cut it and 1 to lock it in place, then I hacksaw the bolt to length, and a quick run over with a file to remove any burrs, when I remove the nuts from the bolt this also corrects and damage (if any) to the thread, being doing this way for years in plenty of show winning car builds.

[Pete25]

i use a dremel with a cutting disk. every rc builder should have a dremel

[Roadrunner]

I never use my dremel for such a mediocre bit of work... its lazy...

MY method is to clamp the bolt into the vice and and using a metal cutting hack saw chop the end off, then smooth over the end with a file or some emery paper, if the threads not quite right i take my dia of the right diameter and recut the thread.

Some tools are just a bit over kill for work like this where some hand tools can do the job just as well.