Check this out

[mickyd]

I thought you were being awfully quiet!:D

Me thinks a HF tap/die set could survive being a thread 'detective'. Those sharp edges could be a negative feature though(they really sell them for $9?).

There are also plastic bolt gages out there. These are real nice for $2. This is cool for the cost of printing out a sheet of paper. Click here to see some other useful fastener stuff. (and yes, if you stumble across it, there really is something called a "SEX BOLT".

Roger on the $9.00 HF tap and die price. Just keep your eye out for the sale price else your pocket will be shy $15 vs. $9. Unreal huh! Great must have investment for anyone doing occasional light duty tap and die work. The T-handle is HORRIBLE quality but you can manage.

[robinson46176]

Since have always done a lot of metal working I have taps and dies (but few metric) coming out of my ears. I have used them for sizing but most of the time I just go to the bolt cabinets I keep stocked in the metal / mechanical shop and pull one out of a drawer if I need to double check something. I've done this stuff long enough that on most common English standard stuff I just go by eye. I do often have to double check the small number sizes though. When I had an automotive shop out on the highway I had a guy that stopped in monthly to restock the bolt bins. The current metal / mechanical shop has maybe 500 to 700 pounds or more of nuts and bolts in it. I sometimes buy a case or more of something at auction. Until I retired we attended a lot of business auctions of businesses that folded after many years. There have been a lot of contractors that have sold out as well. I have an awful lot of good new stuff that I couldn't use up if I live to be 800 years old. Still, I rarely have to make a trip to buy such hardware items.
In a wood related note of odd purchases, I also have up in one loft about 6 or 7 wooden kegs of the old original wrought iron square cut nails. These were machine made but have the big head like the hand made nails. I believe 3 of the kegs are still sealed. I think they are 100 pound kegs. More than I like to lift anymore. They came from an ancient lumber yard that finally sold out about 30 years ago. We bought so much stuff there (about 8 pick-up loads) for super bargain basement prices, that we used, that we could well afford to waste a little money on some odd stuff.
Wandering even farther but still wood related... I have a board I saved from that ancient lumberyard that was in a very old handful of boards from way back in a corner that has a clear axe blaze that healed over as the tree continued to grow. There were over 100 rings between the ring that was growing when it was chopped in the tree and the edge of the board. There were a number of boards cut from the same tree so it was pretty big when cut and the board with the blaze was from the center. It had to have been marked in the earliest days of the Indiana Territory. I cut that section out and saved it just because I thought it was kind of neat. I still haven't decided on what kind of project to build it into. Something kind of special.
OK, I'll quit rambling now.