Thumb Screw (M5)

The Background

Turn a bolt into a thumbscrew!

While working on a project where I needed thumbscrews, it because fairly obvious quite quickly that I was going to have to create my own.  Initially I purchased a pack from Amazon, but they're pretty expensive for what they actually are, and I also needed some different diameters for various parts of my project, so a consistent look was desirable.

I've created something similar before, but went back to the drawing board to knock up this design quickly.

I was able to buy some M5 bolts with the correct length for 10% of what I was going to spend on off-the-shelf thumbscrews, so on this project that represented a huge saving.

The Design

The design consists of 4 parts:

• 1 x M3 hex bolt of the desired length.
• 1 x Body
• 1 x Cap
• 1 x Spacer

Assembling is easy, push the head of the bolt into the recess of the body and ensure that the bolt is straight.  The cap then goes over the thread and is pushed down to be flush with the body.  Finally (and optional!) I provide a simple spacer which will create a small gap between the thumbscrew and the object it is screwed into.

I recommend gluing the cap and body parts, this will keep everything secure, especially when tightening up the thumbscrew.

That's it really, it's a very simple design that is cheap and can be printed out on demand.