If I’m making a threaded spoilboard, can I use M6 inserts that are 10mm in length? I know the recommendation is 13mm but I happen to have 10mm.
Yes, but all of your bolts will need to be 3mm longer, and you may need a wider variety of bolt lengths for the want of that 3mm of thread.
Thanks Will. I also have 15mm inserts. Would this allow for more flexibility? Board will be 3/4”.
Like most things in life, it’s a series of tradeoffs — I’m cheap, and don’t mind having a lot of bolts around (though to be honest, when I was using threaded inserts I used overly long nylon bolts and just cut them if I didn’t already have one of the correct length cut already).
I have an SO3 XXL with a 1/4-20 threaded inserts. The metric will work but the caution is length of bolts in your hold downs. You do not want the bolts to bottom out on the base board. If the bolts hit the spoilboard it raises the spoilboard making your spoilboard out of level and causes inconsistent results. I make cam clamps that have a recess and I have to measure from the bottom of the recess to the bottom of the spoilboard and make the bolts shorter than that measurement. Additionally I get 3/8" long tee nuts so I can surface my spoilboard without hitting the tops of the tee nuts.
Length of your bolts is important as well as the height of your tee nuts.
Here is my v8 CC file of my L bracket and cam clamps.
long_L_bracket.c2d (304 KB)
Just edit to use the spacing of your tee nuts. Mine are 2" for 1/4-20 tee nuts.
@gdon_2003 - Thank you. I like how you designed this. Do the tee nuts basically go into the slotted areas? Do you happen to have a pic of your spoilboard with the nuts/clamps? Thanks again!
Here is my SO3 XXL spoilboard. I use the long L bracket and the cam clamps. The piece on the left is my tiling fence. The L bracket is squared by jogging with a 1/4" bit. You can see pencil lines on the spoilboard that are when I use painters tape and super glue to hold projects. I put the piece on the L fence an mark the perimeter. Then I apply 2" painters tape to the spoilboard and the back of the project. I use Titebond Medium super glue. Wait about 10 minutes after you press the parts together. I apply the super glue in a wavy pattern. I have the 2" painters tape line up bottom and top (bottom of project.
The spoilboard was replaced in July 2025. You can see after a lot of projects my spoilboard is almost pristine. I use the bottom of material for just about everything so I dont get scaring of my spoilboard.
Here are some cigar ash tray I made for the farmer’s market.
This is really helpful. I love the cigar ashtray! Thanks so much.