Screw is stuck in bottom of camera

J

jrod81

Veteran
Okay so I bought a bolt today at a hardware store and screwed it into the bottom of my zi8... I won't go into why I was needing to do this but it worked for my needs but now the screw is stuck in the hole and I am scared to start messing with it too much... so what have I done? have i cross threaded or something?
i was going to use the same setup idea on my t2i but not now if this is probable on it too... what is the ideal bolt and what in the world did i buy that might have caused this?
 
Probably a 1/4" bolt is what you want...have you tried using a screwdriver, etc? Can you include a picture to show what it is you're talking about exactly?
 
well there is no head on the bolt... its the right size cause it went in the hole but now i can't get it to budge... adding a pic to photobucket.com/thingsforsale now
 
okay guys, good news... i went to the garage and put it in some vise grips and just slowly turned the camera... got the screw out but now, talk to me, what in the world did i do wrong... i know there is a 16 and a 20 screw... i have no idea what these numbers mean but i think it has something to do with the spacing of the threads on the screw... perhaps i bought the wrong one (though i have no idea which one of the two i did buy)... would that have caused the issue? what else? going back to Lowes tomorrow to get another bolt and would like to have an idea of what went wrong so i can hopefully buy the right thing this time around...
thanks so much
jared
 
okay guys, good news... i went to the garage and put it in some vise grips and just slowly turned the camera... got the screw out but now, talk to me, what in the world did i do wrong... i know there is a 16 and a 20 screw... i have no idea what these numbers mean but i think it has something to do with the spacing of the threads on the screw... perhaps i bought the wrong one (though i have no idea which one of the two i did buy)... would that have caused the issue? what else? going back to Lowes tomorrow to get another bolt and would like to have an idea of what went wrong so i can hopefully buy the right thing this time around...
thanks so much
jared
 
The numbers 16 and 20 are the tread pitch. Basically how many threads per inch. You may also see them referred to as coarse thread and fine thread, or coarse pitch and fine pitch.

All you need to do (at Ace) is take the camera, and try the two different sizes of bolt. It should screw in with VERY little resistance at all. If you didn't force anything today, the threads should be just fine. If the threads in the camera got messed up a bit, they will need to be "chased" or cleaned up a bit. There is a tool for that the folks there may be able to use to help you.

The mistake you made is a very common one. Most people know very little about hardware.
 
1/4-20 is what you want. The fine is a 1/4-28. Which if you screwed that in is not the end of the world, but not good either. As Perrone mentioned if you take it back to the hardware store (or a local machine shop) they can run a tap through the hole to clean the threads back up again. Better to use a machine shop as they will have whats called a flat bottom tap that is better for shallow blind holes.
 
Re tapping a female thread will both loosen the threads (the bolt won't hold "tight), and possibly fall out when tilted. Increase the thread size (+ 1/64th) and use a correspondingly larger bolt.
 
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