I am looking for a good place to buy rack screws, I was hoping to find a place i can just stop in and pick up a pack of 100, tried Guitar Center and they told me they have to order them, unless i wanted some "specialty" ones they had in stock that where $9 for 10 screws, yeah I dont think so. I am reassembling an Ampex VR-1200 Quadruplex VTR and it has a lot of rack mount modules.

There are the relay rack pitched screws, and what I call the music rack pitched screws. Then all of the cage nut stuff. Guitar Center USED to have the Raxxas 100 packs of the music rack screws, and I thought it was $20 or $25. Grainger or something like it might be another option, it depends in your area what you have for telecom / datacom suppliers. In Norfolk VA there were a few stores that sold some electronic components then a lot of different wire, wall racks, and they would have rack screws due to the wall racks. Here in Northern VA there are a few similar stores that do the whole CCTV/AV/electronics parts/cables that sell wall racks and relay racks. Wall racks would have screws similar to music racks sometimes, relay racks have larger threads. Look up telecom and datacom cable people in your area, good leads there perhaps.

HI Matt: Yeah…. rack screws can be expensive. The brass screws we used at work were $1.50 each! One of the construction guys had a bag on 100 in his hand, and commented: “Hey guys… take a look at $150.” And the company was buying them in large quantities… likely 1000 at a time. I guess the alloy of the metal is special, because the screws may have to take the entire weight load of the rack unit being mounted. Some stuff can be pretty heavy, especially if it’s a power supply. But then, the PSs are usually at the bottom of the rack. 73 de Ray

On Mar 23, 2016, at 9:03 AM, Matt Patoray via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:

I am looking for a good place to buy rack screws, I was hoping to find a place i can just stop in and pick up a pack of 100, tried Guitar Center and they told me they have to order them, unless i wanted some "specialty" ones they had in stock that where $9 for 10 screws, yeah I dont think so.

I am reassembling an Ampex VR-1200 Quadruplex VTR and it has a lot of rack mount modules.

Vintage Computer tie in, lots of Mini and S-100 bus computers are able to be rack mounted, and the VTR was able to used in a PDP-11 comtrolled editing system.

-- Matt Patoray Owner, MSP Productions KD8AMG Amateur Radio Call Sign