Tandy Alphabet Conchos

[jettrash]

Hey all.

I've been working with these Alphabet conchos that Tandy sells and I'm having a tough time. The little brass screws keep breaking off in the threaded portion of the concho.

I've tried using 3 in 1 oil to lubricate the threads but that didn't help.

I've gone incredible slowwwwww and worked the screws in and out to try and open up the threads. But that didnt help.

The threads on these things are REALLY jacked up. The little brass screws only go about half way at best.

I even had the manager at one of our local Tandy stores try and screw one in and IT broke.

At $4.5 a piece they should work better.

Any advice, other then not using them at all?

Thanks.

[cybertracy]

Hi, I work at Tandy and we had the same problem (as well as one other store I'm aware of), but it was specifically one of the posts (bottom-most) on one certain letter (I think it was "P"). We reordered several times for a customer who brought it to our attention but had the same problem with the replacements. The customer was desparate and really couldn't wait through another unsuccessful retry so I used a woodburning tool to carefully heat up the thread area of the concho and slowly screwed in the screw (heat screw about 1/2 turn, heat, 1/2 turn, etc) This worked to get the screw in, I let it cool and it came in and out fine after that. I tried the same technique on all the rest of the P's we had with pretty good success.

Check your alphabet conchos and if you find any of the same defects take them back to your local store and ask for replacements. If you cannot spare the time and need them right away, try the above technique--if it fails to work still take them back for replacements.

I understand these conchos are not cheap (price-wise) and no one should expect to have to reinvent ways to get them to work--so returning them for replacements might prompt upper management to call it to the manufacturer's attention and perhaps more care will be taken all around.

[cybertracy]

just a follow-up . . . we got a "calling all stores" alert from the powers that be at Tandy and they are asking all the managers to check the alphabet conchos for defects and shipping out replacements asap.

Thanks for your post jettrash!