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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

TheEnvironmentalist
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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 :)

Harper - Reinstate Monica
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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.

KaCe Whitacre
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