A growing number of products arrive here as imports from countries that utilize tools and machines sized by the metric system. So even though the US is not fully on the metric system, American businesses need to use tools and fasteners to accommodate metric-based imports from most other countries in the world. Many of these imported products and machinery use metric bolts, of which we carry one of the largest inventories around, here at Electronic Fasteners in Canton, MA.
Buying metric bolts is easier at Electronic Fasteners because we:
- Help you accurately compare and convert US to metric sizes to ensure that you’re getting the proper fastener for your application
- Offer the area’s largest and most complete inventory of metric fasteners
- Provide immediate shipping for most orders
- Offer a vendor-managed inventory program to automatically maintain your in-house stock of metric fasteners
Because the use of the metric system is still not widespread in the United States, it can be a challenge to purchase metric bolts. The size of a metric screw or bolt is specified as diameter, pitch and length, in millimeters (millimeters, as you probably remember from school, is abbreviated “mm”). For nuts, size will appear as diameter and pitch. There is an exception though—if pitch isn’t specified, the fastener is coarse threaded.
If you normally work with inch fasteners, pitch might be confusing – it’s the distance between adjacent threads. For example, a pitch of 1.0 means that the distance from one thread to the next is 1.0 millimeter. However, US system fasteners are described as threads per inch, which is sometimes mistakenly called pitch. If you need to know the threads per inch of a metric bolt or other fastener, first convert pitch from millimeters to inches (multiply by 0.03937), then divide 1 by that number. Or you can simply call the metric bolts experts here at Electronic Fasteners.
For your convenience and peace-of-mind, we carry a comprehensive inventory of both English and metric fasteners – including metric bolts — in a variety of shapes, sizes, and materials. So if your next project or product calls for metric-based fasteners, just give us a call.