I did a search and found this old advertisement in what looks like a 1950s era business magazine. I'm sure that would have gotten a lot of laughs in the "Mad Men" era. These days, it would send snowflakes running to HR.
Posted on 04/28/2018 8:43:57 PM PDT by SamAdams76
Bolts are one of the most common elements used in construction and machine design. They hold everything together – from screws in electric toothbrushes and door hinges to massive bolts that secure concrete pillars in buildings. Yet, have you ever stopped to wonder where they actually came from?
While the history of threads can be traced back to 400 BC, the most significant developments in the modern day bolt and screw processes were made during the last 150 years. Experts differ as to the origins of the humble nut and bolt. In his article “Nuts and Bolts”, Frederick E. Graves argues that a threaded bolt and a matching nut serving as a fastener only dates back to the 15th century. He bases this conclusion on the first printed record of screws appearing in a book in the early 15th century.
However, Graves also acknowledges that even though the threaded bolt dates back to the 15th century, the unthreaded bolt goes back to Roman times when it was used for “barring doors, as pivots for opening and closing doors and as wedge bolts: a bar or a rod with a slot in which a wedge was inserted so that the bolt could not be moved.” He also implies that the Romans developed the first screw, which was made out of bronze, or even silver. The threads were filed by hand or consisted of a wire wound around a rod and soldered on.
According to bolt expert Bill Eccles’ research, the history of the screw thread goes back much further. Archimedes (287 BC–212 BC) developed the screw principle and used it to construct devices to raise water. However, there are signs that the water screw may have originated in Egypt before the time of Archimedes. It was constructed from wood and was used to irrigate land and remove bilge water from ships. “But many consider that the screw thread was invented around 400 BC by [Greek philosopher] Archytas of Tarentum, who has often been called the founder of mechanics and considered a contemporary of Plato,” Eccles writes on his website.
The history can be broken down into two parts: the threads themselves that date back to around 400 BC when they were used for items such as a spiral for lifting water, presses for grapes to make wine, and the fasteners themselves, which have been in use for around 400 years.
Moving forward to the 15th century, Johann Gutenberg used screws in the fastenings on his printing presses. The tendency to use screws gained momentum with their use being extended to items such as clocks and armour. According to Graves, Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks from the late 15th and early 16th centuries include several designs for screw-cutting machines.
What the majority of researchers on this topic do agree on, though, is that it was the Industrial Revolution that sped up the development of the nut and bolt and put them firmly on the map as an important component in the engineering and construction world.
The “History of the Nut and Bolt Industry in America” by W.R. Wilbur in 1905 acknowledges that the first machine for making bolts and screws was made by Besson in France in 1568, who later introduced a screw-cutting gauge or plate to be used on lathes. In 1641, the English firm, Hindley of York, improved this device and it became widely used.
Across the Atlantic in the USA, some of the documented history of the bolt may be found in the Carriage Museum of America. Nuts on vehicles built in the early 1800s were flatter and squarer than later vehicles, which had chamfered corners on the nuts and the flush was trimmed off the bolts. Making bolts at this time was a cumbersome and painstaking process.
Initially, screw threads for fasteners were made by hand but soon, due to a significant increase in demand, it was necessary to speed up the production process. In Britain in 1760, J and W Wyatt introduced a factory process for the mass production of screw threads. However, this milestone led to another challenge: each company manufactured its own threads, nuts and bolts so there was a huge range of different sized screw threads on the market, causing problems for machinery manufacturers.
It wasn’t until 1841 that Joseph Whitworth managed to find a solution. After years of research collecting sample screws from many British workshops, he suggested standardising the size of the screw threads in Britain so that, for example, someone could make a bolt in England and someone in Glasgow could make the nut and they would both fit together. His proposal was that the angle of the thread flanks was standardised at 55 degrees, and the number of threads per inch, should be defined for various diameters. While this issue was being addressed in Britain, the Americans were trying to do likewise and initially started using the Whitworth thread.
In 1864, William Sellers proposed a 60 degree thread form and various thread pitches for different diameters. This developed into the American Standard Coarse Series and the Fine Series. One advantage the Americans had over the British was that their thread form had flat roots and crests. This made it easier to manufacture than the Whitworth standard, which had rounded roots and crests. It was found, however, that the Whitworth thread performed better in dynamic applications and the rounded root of the Whitworth thread improved fatigue performance.
During World War I, the lack of consistency between screw threads in different countries became a huge obstacle to the war effort; during World War II it became an even bigger problem for the Allied forces. In 1948, Britain, the USA and Canada agreed on the Unified thread as the standard for all countries that used imperial measurements. It uses a similar profile as the DIN metric thread previously developed in Germany in 1919. This was a combination of the best of the Whitworth thread form (the rounded root to improve fatigue performance) and the Sellers thread (60 degree flank angle and flat crests). However, the larger root radius of the Unified thread proved to be advantageous over the DIN metric profile. This led to the ISO metric thread which is used in all industrialised countries today.
Those working in the industry have witnessed much fine-tuning of bolts during recent decades. “When I started in the industry 35 years ago the strength of the bolts was not as fully defined as it is today,” recalls Eccles. “With the introduction of the modern metric property classes and the recent updates to the relevant ISO standards, the description of a bolt’s strength and the test methods used to establish their properties is now far better defined.”
As the raw materials industry has become more sophisticated, the DNA of bolts has changed from steel to other more exotic materials to meet changing industry needs.
Over the last 20 years there have been developments in nickel-based alloys that can work in high temperature environments such as turbochargers and engines in which steel doesn’t perform as well. Recent research focuses on light metal bolts such as aluminum, magnesium and titanium.
Today’s bolt technology has come a long way since the days when bolts and screws were made by hand and customers could only choose between basic steel nuts and bolts. These days, companies like Nord-Lock have invented significant improvements in bolting technology, including wedge-locking systems. Customers can select pre-assembled zinc flake coated or stainless steel washers, wheel nuts designed for flat-faced steel rims, or combi bolts, which are customised for different applications. The acquisition of US company Superbolt Inc. and Swiss company P&S Vorspannsysteme AG (today Nord-Lock AG) has added bolting products used in heavy industry, such as offshore, energy, and mining, to Nord-Lock’s portfolio, taking a huge step in becoming a world leader in bolt securing.
There is also much more emphasis now on analyzing joints. “In the past, people used to decide upon a certain size of fastener based on their experience alone. And, fingers crossed, it would work,” Eccles explains. “Nowadays, people focus more on analysis and making sure things work before products are built and sent out into the market.”
They are. All metric bolts have a number stamped on the head followed by a decimal point, and then a second number. The first number is the tensile strength in thousands of mega-Pascals. The number after the decimal point is the ratio between tensile and yield strength. You multiply the first number by the second to get the yield strength. (Don't confuse the size of the bolt with the strength. A 10 mm diameter metric bolt is generally called an M10 bold. This is NOT marked on the bolt. An M10 bolt can be any strength. A bolt marked 10.8 on the head can be any diameter.)
SAE bolts are a little less specific. There are generally three grades available: grade 2, grade 5, and grade 8. Grade 2, the weakest, has no markings. Grade 5 is moderate strength, and has three radial lines on the head. Grade 8 is the highest strength, and has 6 radial lines on the head. If you didn't notice, add 2 to the number of radial lines on the head to get the grade of the bolt.
ping
Fascinating story in an NHK World video with English voice over. Well worth your time to watch: in telling the story, the inventor gives an informal tutorial on how to think outside the box.
The Professionals in Japan Defying Convention -- Hiroshi Michiwaki (YouTube, 47 minutes long, however, high production and explanatory values)
Another product absorbs noise on a highway by using a series of carefully calculated angles to reflect sound. His extraordinary flow of ideas addresses a wide variety of challenges.
The roots of his inspiration lie in a decision to leave school at age 11 before working a series of different jobs. As we follow him at work, we gain insights into the thought processes of a genius with almost no formal schooling.
Hex bolts are labeled for tensile strength
Good post. I walked into a hardware store some years back, and started working the next day. I had to learn on the job what all this meant. And, it wasn’t a very good hardware store, very disorganized. I did inventory once. Bolts and nuts mismatched everywhere, but once I got a handle on what a customer was looking for, I could match things up for them.
There are a LOT of options.
Very interesting.
Anyone notice that in all those years, nuts and bolts stick to specific genders?
As one who gains inspiration from history and science fiction, this was a great read. Thanks!
seems like some gender confusion going on with nuts as intrinsically being female components yet demanding to be called nuts. And why are they called washers, isn't that demeaning to feminists?
;>)
I once met a nuts and bolts salesman. He rally knew his business.
He drew markings on paper showing what they meant on the head of a bolt. Now that we have the internet I guess it is easy to just look it up.
He said the most common problem people have is replacing the bolt holding the blade of a lawn mower with a mild steel one. Guaranteed to break.
I did a search and found this old advertisement in what looks like a 1950s era business magazine. I'm sure that would have gotten a lot of laughs in the "Mad Men" era. These days, it would send snowflakes running to HR.
There are many specialized threaded fasteners in automotive and many other industries.
Another automotive example are head bolts; the torque specs you get from the manual usually won't tell you that the spec is for "new" head bolts. The new head bolts get stretched just so much to keep the head gasket from leaking, the old head bolts cannot achieve that optimum strength a second time.
On a related note, Boeing is set to announce Monday that they have agreed to buy
KLXI a large manufacturer of bolts and other connecting hardware.
Was up 9% Friday.
I worked in aerospace for awhile. On the factory floor, if a tech pulled a nut or bolt out of the bins and it was the wrong one, they were not allowed to put it back. It got thrown into a bucket on the floor. This was NAS hardware. Every month there would be a salvage yard sale for the employees. I would buy the entire contents of these buckets for a few cents/pound. Beautiful stuff, some of it even silver plated. All fine thread though, so often not usable on my car. Sorted it, stored it, use it.
We had to purchase tension testing machines to confirm the hydrogen was properly baked out and met spec.
When I was around 15 years old my father bought a new calkins rod weeder that came to the local dealer unassembled. Like my father using young family to work the farm the dealer had his sons doing the prep work. In their inexperience they used a lower grade bolt on the main frame pivot points. I was running at night to help get our work done. We were in the transition between older 820 John Deere tractors to a 145 Versatile 4WD so hadn’t really gotten a handle on the pulling power. There I was in the dark (old style lighting) and the motor was bogging down. My experience said to down shift and go which I did, twice. Needless to say the rod had gone deep into the soil and when I saw the bent steel I just walked home. In the aftermath I was glad I did not have to go help the dealers sons dig it out and replace all the bent tubing and fit the proper bolts. Grades mean things!
ping for later
A Clintonite escapes the asylum, commits rape and runs wild in New York.
Stated in four words.
Nut, screws, and bolts.
LOL!
Bolting out of here ~~~~
Now to find a proper metric wrench to tighten up;
and why to they refer to them as wrenches?
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