Can anyone confirm what size screws should be used in the Rigid R22002 base?
I measured and was fairly sure that they were M5x0.8, however…
The longer M5s that I bought were uncomfortably big for the tapped holes in the router base . I didn’t want to damage the holes so I didn’t force them in.
(Top: longer replacement screw))
(bottom: Original Screw)
Maybe these are actually an imperial size that is coincidentally very close to M5x0.8?
or…
Maybe I bought some crappy screws that were manufactured to imprecise tolerances?
Edit: These are the 3 screws that mount the round, clear router foot to the base of the router.
As blurf said they are 10-32, but if you have m5 and a 10-32 die, you can retool the m5 to fit.
10-32
Major OD - 0.1831" - 0.1891"
Pitch OD - 0.1658" - .1688"
0.03125" between threads
M5 x 0.8
Major OD - 0.1900" - 0.1959"
Pitch OD - 0.1717" - 0.1754"
0.03150" between Threads
As you can see, the thread pitch is nearly the same, but the m5 has a bigger diameter, so running a 10-32 die across the threads of a M5 bolt will remove the extra, converting it to a 10-32.
Really off-topic here, but I once saw a neat system for a self-locking nut & bolt combination. It consisted of a bolt with two nuts. When installed, if the nuts try to vibrate loose, they will jam into each other, because the outer nut doesn’t want to move as far as they turn. The secret is that the nuts have different pitches and very slightly different diameters. The bolt was threaded and then threaded with a different die so that the second threads exist only on the peaks of the first threads. Clever! If I can remember the name, I’ll post a link.
