I'm trying to track down some fairly obscure hardware parts (cross
dowels, actually) that accept a number 8 machine screw, which would
nearly always be written as #8. All the search engines I've tried so
far throw out the # from "#8" and give me plenty of listings for 3/8"
parts. Is there any search engine that will search for a phrase
including # or other non-alphanumeric characters?

Thanks,
Drew

On 2 May 2005 14:27:18 -0700, Drew Tronvig <dtronvig@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I'm trying to track down some fairly obscure hardware parts (cross
> dowels, actually) that accept a number 8 machine screw, which would
> nearly always be written as #8. All the search engines I've tried so
> far throw out the # from "#8" and give me plenty of listings for 3/8"
> parts. Is there any search engine that will search for a phrase
> including # or other non-alphanumeric characters?

Have you tried mcmaster.com, page 2867:

http://www.mcmaster.com/ctlg/DisplCt...MMainWidth=876

i

Thanks Igno,

Yeah, been there but sadly they only list 1/4" cross dowels. Stafast
has #10s and there's a manufacturer of #8 cross dowels in Shanghai who
who must be selling them to the American market somehow, so I'll check
with them.

It would still be great to find any way of specifying special
characters in a search engine but I suspect that none of them try to
index non-alphanumeric characters and either drop them or treat them as
spaces.

On 4 May 2005 22:24:36 -0700, "Drew Tronvig" <dtronvig@yahoo.com>
wrote:

>Thanks Igno,
>
>Yeah, been there but sadly they only list 1/4" cross dowels. Stafast
>has #10s and there's a manufacturer of #8 cross dowels in Shanghai who
>who must be selling them to the American market somehow, so I'll check
>with them.
>
>It would still be great to find any way of specifying special
>characters in a search engine but I suspect that none of them try to
>index non-alphanumeric characters and either drop them or treat them as
>spaces.

I believe the German version of Google will observe umlauts in the
search field. So an answer is probably out there. Seek out Tara
Calishain and ask her.

BB
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