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  • Sarasarae@ecoevo.social
    Jun 7, 2026, 10:32 PM

    this weekend's big household progress was that I finally got my battleship Steelcase desk (formerly OHSU, formerly LCC, surplused ca. 2005) reassembled

    no I didn't find the bolts which bless them @grrlpup and her wife put somewhere safe when they were helping me move, 3 years ago

    it is now held together with 3 different sized fittings

    because these were designed with a very clever arrangement of square nuts set into lil sheet metal boxes

    which works great

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Replies

  • Sarasarae@ecoevo.social
    Jun 7, 2026, 10:35 PM

    until one of the square nuts comes lose

    or until America decides that 5/16" fine-threaded (24 tpi) slotted-pan-head bolts should no longer be readily available

    anyhow should you ever need to reattach the pedestals to a Steelcase desk

    that is the bolt you are trying to buy, is a 5/8" long 5/16 diameter FINE-threaded bolt

    good luck

    (I have now replaced as many as possible with 3/4" long 1/4" diameter stainless bolts with wing nuts, because I don't hate myself THAT much)

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  • Sarasarae@ecoevo.social
    Jun 7, 2026, 10:47 PM

    but at the exterior corners there is not, sadly, space to make the threaded end of the bolt come down and get secured by a wing nut

    so if you have lost the square nut out of one of those, you need a 1/4" square nut, which you will line up in the little box and squeeze it back shut

    and then you can secure THAT with a small 1/4" stainless bolt

    which is going to be a bit of a job because it's sliiiiiightly too small for the box, so prone to wiggle

    but I promise it will work if you're patient

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  • Sarasarae@ecoevo.social
    Jun 7, 2026, 10:50 PM

    anyhow the whole deal is working again and now I just need to clean the drawers out

    there is all kinds of shit in this desk dating back to the second Bush administration

    and friends I have to tell you that many things are not today as important as they were in 2007

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  • grrlpupgrrlpup@pdx.social
    Jun 8, 2026, 12:41 AM

    @sarae oh my! I checked with E just in case and she is certain they went somewhere sensible😂

    Of course, if she had rattled off their location after all this, it might not be good news really

    I’m glad you’re reunited with your monster desk and hope others benefit from your hardware journey

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  • Sarasarae@ecoevo.social
    Jun 8, 2026, 2:24 AM

    @grrlpup I'm SURE you put them in a really sensible place

    but I finally decided that after 3 years of unpacking if I haven't seen them, I need to adapt

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