Cast iron rad bushings

kcopp

Does anyone know of a good source to find 1 1/4" x 3/4" bushings for a cast iron radiator?
All I can find are the clunky looking ones. I was hoping to find something that looked a bit cleaner than the std one off the shelf at a supply house.... TIA

WMno57

Could you clean up a clunky bushing with a grinder?

EBEBRATT-Ed

Your pretty much stuck with what you get. Eccentric couplings would be better but big $$$

EdTheHeaterMan

Unless you plan on doing some artistic accent painting on the radiator details, no one will ever notice it after you put a coat of red paint on it.

Kind of like that dent in the wall near the doorknob, or the piece of plastic you paste on the wall to prevent those dents.

Just saying...
Mr.Ed

mattmia2

Maybe a cap and a nipple and drill and tap it? Do they make it in chrome, either a bushing or a cap? Maybe try looking in some radiator catalogs

Intplm.

You can ask for a "flush" black malleable bushing. You can also get a bushing that does not have flat areas on them (sometimes they are the same thing.) This can tidy up the look of the rads.
Sometimes you have to push your supplier for what you want. These are available.

kcopp

Thanks. Just trying to make it look as attractive as possible.

archibald tuttle

@EBEBRATT-Ed you are stuck with what you can get unless you feel like making something. and given that eccentric (couplings, I don't believe anybody offers an eccentric bushing) are like 3 times my monthly salary, making something is often the only choice (other than asking for a raise :-)

So i'm with @mattmia2 on this and have started taking solid automotive or industrial hex caps that are usually finished with a cleaner hex than most plumbing bushings and drilling an eccentric pilot hole and tapping to make my own eccentric bushings. and this usually saves a fitting as the most frequent use is from a female tapping in a radiator to a male union spud for a valve or steam trap. so a coupling is wasteful in length in those circumstances, both from pattern of manufacture and because I would have to use a pipe nipple on the larger size as well.

I was using stainless he caps, although that is a challenge if you hole size is much bigger than 1/2" nom, and even at 1/2" and a sharp high speed tap it was a bit of overkill although it friggin looked great.

unfortunately no brass manufacturers i can find make brass hex plugs beyond 1" so i've just been using steel.

so far these are solid plugs although even hollow plugs have some possibility for use at the pressures we're generally talking even though they offer less depth for threading

I usually need 1 and 1/4 or 1 and 1/2.

I talked to Holyoke at the last AHR show about whether it might be possible to intercept their bushing manufacturing line and just buy a hundred or a thousand bushing blanks in those sizes that had been threaded on the outside but not drilled and threaded on the inside. That request kind fell off the map as covid fell onto it but you reminded me i gotta circle back.