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I've got a desk held together by these really strange screws below. The tapped end goes into one end of a joint, the plastic piece goes into the other end of the joint, and then the head of the screw goes into the plastic piece, with an additional screw (shown in bottom picture) to hold it in place. The pen is for scale, with the screw about 1.5 inches / 4 cm in length.

While I'm not optimistic that someone here would recognize these two pieces, is there a general process for identifying parts like this? I'd 3D print a copy of the plastic piece if I had some way of reproducing all the grooves inside it and getting a matching screw, but I have no idea if these types of pieces are standardized, and if so what they're called and where I'd look.

Thanks in advance for any help here, you guys are awesome!

Edit: It’s not IKEA. I brought it to them and they said they’d never seen the parts before.

Desk screw and plastic piece Screw and plastic piece in connected joint

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    Generically it's some sort of "knockdown" fastener - i.e. for assembling some type of particleboard/MDF "flatpack" furniture. But both the look and your description indicate that it's not the usual "camlock" also used for that purpose.
    – Ecnerwal
    Commented Oct 7, 2020 at 2:43
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    looks like an IKEA cam-lock fastener
    – jsotola
    Commented Oct 7, 2020 at 5:48
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    @J... so it’s not IKEA. They said they’d never seen anything like that before
    – TheEnvironmentalist
    Commented Oct 8, 2020 at 19:50

2 Answers 2

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A well-equipped hardware store will have a drawer with many common fasteners used in this type of flatpack furniture.

I mean well-equipped. Home Depot is not a hardware store. ACE or better. Preferably that family-owned hardware store that has been there for 80 years and has creaky floors and weird little mezzanines with things just crammed everywhere.

Anybody who's enough of a Maker to be 3-D printing things, honestly, ought to make themselves familiar with the 3 nearest such hardware stores, if they aren't already :)

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  • I totally concur with @Harper and will add that you could always investigate an alternative traditional method to fasten those pieces, rather than duplicate the lame Swedish assembly it came with... like wood screws and glue.
    – Jimmy Fix-it
    Commented Oct 7, 2020 at 6:25
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    ACE "Hardware" does not sell any fasteners in my town, for what it's worth. Have to go to Home Depot or Lowe's. But there is a Fastenal about half a mile further down the road, luckily.
    – TylerH
    Commented Oct 7, 2020 at 13:09
  • Just stumbled across an 80-year-old hardware store loaded to the gills with little things like this. Sadly, they're closing their doors - they can't compete with the big-boxes. On the bright side, I'm looking to buy some storage racks from them to organize my garage!
    – FreeMan
    Commented Oct 7, 2020 at 13:50
  • The Home Depot near me does carry parts like this. And they're significantly better quality than the original ones that came from IKEA - those things snap right off with just a little bit of shear stress. After I broke a few on some IKEA furniture in the process of moving, I decided to replace all of them (even the not-yet-broken ones) with the ones I found at Home Depot, haven't broken one since. YMMV of course.
    – Darrel Hoffman
    Commented Oct 7, 2020 at 16:08
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    Every ACE I've been in has a much worse selection than Home Depot. Not saying Home Depot is great, I've been unable to find things there too, just that ACE doesn't seem to be any better.
    – Kat
    Commented Oct 7, 2020 at 18:15
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I live in Tacoma, WA and when I have an issue finding a fastener to replace one or am just trying to find one that most stores do not carry, I use a speciality store/warehouse, called Tacoma Screw. They have hundreds if not more products, that's pretty much all they sell. I shop there so often if I just need one or two of something they often just give it to me, as I'm sure it takes more time to ring up the sale than the ticket is worth. Wherever you live there is probably a store like this in the area. The sales people are knowledgable and helpful to people making an effort to learn about such things. Good luck. PS If I need a lot of something their quantity pricing is often better than the box stores and I can specify the exact number I want on many of the products. I recently replaced sheetmetal screws in my garage door with carriage bolts. I asked for a specific amount and got a discount for having over a certain number. I used them all and did not need to find a place to keep a few that could have been left over if I was forced to buy by the box. Again... good luck.

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  • Welcome to Home Improvement. Please take the tour and browse the help center, particularly the section on "how to answer". Additionally, some formatting would help make your answers more readable. Hit the <enter> key twice to insert a blank line.
    – FreeMan
    Commented Aug 31, 2022 at 11:56

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