After work I stopped by Candey’s Hardware on 18th Street and bought some toilet bolts. They work pretty well with the Delta bench saw that I have.

I had been planning to buy toilet flange bolts, because of the relatively small thickness of the heads, but I spotted hanging next to those some brass toilet seat hinge bolts that looked like they’d work. I measured the diameter of the heads and it was 3/4″, which is the width of the widest part of the miter gauge T-slots on the saw.[1] The heads on the flange bolts aren’t round, they’re more like oval-shaped, so I was happy to find round but thin and not too wide.

Both sets of bolts come in a package with other hardware, but the seat hinge hardware included wingnuts, which I also wanted. I had been worried about finding matching wingnuts for the flange bolts. And I had been worried about finding bolts that were fully threaded. So I was darned pleased to have the right size bolts, that were fully threaded, and that came in a package with washers and wingnuts. And all for four dollars.

When I got home I tried the bolts in the miter gauge slots and the bolts were just slightly barely too big. But the belt sander was propped upside down in the bench vise, for use as a grinder, so I just fired that up and ground a bit around the head of each bolt until they fit. Then I grabbed my homemade feather board and cut a channel in it. Then I slipped the bolt in the T-slot, put the feather board over that, then popped on a washer and tightend on a wingnut. And now I have a better way to hold down the feather board.

[1] Standard saw slots are 3/8″ x 3/4″. Delta lists the TS200 slots at 5/16″ x 5/8″, but I measure them as 1/4″ x 5/8″. In such measurements, the first number is the depth of the slot, and the second number is the wide of the slot at its narrow point. Below that slot is the wider slot for the head of the (upside down) T, in my saw’s case 3/4″.