A 1/2" - 13 Bolt From A Nut, A Roll-Pin And A Length Of Threaded Rod

The title of this post pretty much tells the story, but I'll elaborate.

The 'desk' where I write these posts in my workshop is a rude, crude assemblage of odds and ends that serves the purpose, though it's ugly as sin; I'll spare the reader a view of it. Holding it together so far has been a length of 1/2" - 13 threaded rod and a couple of hex nuts. The assembly had a disturbing tendency to come unscrewed little-by-little, so I thought I'd make it more secure by fashioning a hex-headed bolt from the length of threaded rod, a hex nut and a 1/8" roll pin.^[1] Here's a view of the components I'll be starting with.

A centre-punch mark on one flat of the hex nut affords a beginning to the project.

I located that punch mark strictly by eye. Human vision has a remarkable gift for locating centre without the aid of measuring tools.

Here's the nut screwed onto its rod and drilled through 1/8" diameter for the roll pin.

I made a mistake there. I should have used a second nut to jam the nut-to-be-drilled in position. The drilled nut tended to drift about as the drill met the threaded rod. Not a fatal error, but something that I won't repeat in future.

Here's the 1/8" x 1" roll pin installed and fully seated on one side of the nut.

Here's the other end of the roll pin prior to cutting it down.

And here's the finished roll pin installation after cutting off and filing the protrusion.

Not too shabby. So there I have a 7 1/2" long 1/2" - 13 bolt for holding my 'desk' together.

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Note:

[1] A quick-and-dirty way to accomplish the same thing is to put a nut on the end of a length of threaded rod with red threadlocker, but I was happily fixated on using a roll pin for this.

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