Went to Lowes yesterday to get a nut for the upper ball joint as the new one did not come with a nut, anyway I started pulling drawers that showed nuts and no luck, wrong thread, so I went looking in the bins and there are a lot of them, the last bin was full of nuts and I grabbed one and it screwed on to the ball joint that I took with me, I started to leave and thought I will get a second one so I reach for another but this one would not screw on, wrong thread. I must have tried 20 nuts from that bin and all wrong thread, so I saw the bolts that are glued to peg board to find what size and thread, it was a 1/2--20. I looked at every bin in the hardware dept that had nuts and there was not another nut in the whole fricking store with the right thread except for the one nut that I randomly grabbed. Went to check out and told her it was a 1/2 - 20 nut, she could not find it so just charged for a 1/2 nut, 24 cents. Walking to my truck I could not believe what had just happened, as I opened the door I looked down and there was a quarter laying on the ground so Got my money back plus a penny, as I started the truck I remembered today is my birthday, still thinking about the nut and the quarter, still could not believe it. On the way home stopped and got gas, while at the register I noticed PowerBall Lottery, well, I never play the lottery but no way in Hell am I going to pass this up so I let the machine pick the numbers because the nut I picked was random.
This morning I checked the numbers and about **** my pants, I GOT ALL the wrong numbers. Ohwell I did get a free nut. Happy Birthday to me. lol.

 

You can buy half a nut in the States? Impressive.

 

1/2 inch nut. Or .500

 

You can actually buy 'half nuts', but they are just half the normal thickness...

 

 

All in all it was still a good day for you, Happy Belated Birthday

 

This is a half nut LOL

 

 

Indeed, I did need a half nut a few years ago!! The spindle on my derelict VW based dune buggy, Not an uncommon way of locking. Washer with tang between the halves.
and, here needed CCW thread!!!

I found one at the local hardware store, an ACE franchise. Well, not quite . Thick, not thin for the pairing . Great, the spindle threads OK. the ACE nut screwed on.

So, saw cut the ACE nut in to two??? I not sure as to how to do that and get precise mates.

So, I drilled a flat and tapped it for a grub screw. The screw to seat ina slot in the spindle. Yahoo, got it.

Tested. naah. VW gone.

Carl