Estimating surface area for nuts/washers/bolts

[mleonard]

I'm getting ready to start plating with my Copy Cad kit. I'm doing only nuts and bolts (mostly) and was hoping that somebody has already calculated surface area for standard bolt/screw sizes. Is there a chart somewhere with this info? If not, how would I go about figuring out the surface area of a sheet metal screw, or a 1 1/2 7/16 thread bolt? Also, I have some 26GA brass wire that makes wiring up some small sheet metal screws easier, but is this too thin to carry sufficient current even if I'm only doing some small screws?

Thanks,
ML

[woodjames]

Have fun with the surface area

As far as the wire, you can use whatever size you want as long as it's completely in solution. You'd have to wire everything up, and then connect that to a thicker copper wire, that the thicker stuff is what makes the transition from outside the tank to inside. You don't want the thin stuff out of the solution too. What happens is that in the solution the heat of the current in the small dissipates into the solution, and outside the same effect won't happen with air, so the wire gets hot and can melt.

On all my tanks I make up an S shaped hook out of copper pipe with a small hole in the bottom of it. The hook has to be long enough that the hole in just into the solution, from there you use whatever size wire you have handy. Save on always having to use thick wire, and it saves that the wire you hang with doesn't have to be as long.

-Jimmy.

[craige]

There is a link in the technical support that wil give you the surface areas for nuts and bolts.
Caswell Inc. - Powered By Kayako SupportSuite

[mleonard]

Thanks, guys.

[JHudgens]

Its really pretty simple to estimate surface area for nuts and bolts. For a bolt, I calculate the circumference and then multiply by the length to get surface arrea. I generally ignore the bolt head unless its a large bolt. To calculate the head, I measure the width and height of one of the flats, calculate the surface area then multiply by 6. I sometimes also include the top of the bolt head by measuring the distance across the corners and treat that as the diameter of a circle. All of these calculations are plenty accuracte enough for Copy Cad.

You can calculate small screws such as sheet metal scews in a similar manner. Just measure the diameter and the head size.

For nuts, I use the same procedure as for calculating surface area of the bolt head.

For general information: Area of a circle is Pi X radius squared

Circumference of a circle is Pi X diameter

Area of a cylinder is the circumference X length

Since I do a lot of nuts and bolts and washers, etc. in Copy Cad, I keep an Excel spreadsheet for most of the common size bolts, nuts, washers, screws, etc.

Jerry Hudgens