The Story of the Threaded Screw
Did you know that Archimedes discovered the principle of the screw thread around 250 BC? The screw thread was developed as a means to move water from rivers for irrigation. Next came applications using the screw as Roman presses for extracting olive oil and the making of cloth. The Romans had technology to cut female and male threads but each had to be cut and filed by hand. This difficulty led to the shelving of the screw as a fastening concept and to the popularity of using nails and rivets during the Dark Ages. Not until the Renaissance did the hand made metal screw return. In 1480 AD threaded screws were commonly used in the assembly of clocks. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) had designs for screw thread cutting machinery in his notebooks. Somewhere around 1568 the French mathematician Jacques Besson invented the first useable screw cutting lathe, however; many continued making metal screws by hand for another century. During the 16th century firearms and assembly concepts brought the metal screw closer to mass production which actually occurred during the Industrial Revolution in 1765. All inventions during this period required fasteners and screws became components parts ranking with springs, gears, and valves. In the early 1800’s a system for matching screw threads to the proportion of the diameter of the screw was developed. In 1836 the first patent for rolling threads on screws was issued. In 1841 Joseph Whitworth presented to Great Britain’s Institute of Civil engineers his paper on "The Uniform System of Screw-Threads". This system became the British standard for fasteners, followed by the United States version in 1864. This double system caused many troubling moments during World War I and World War II. In 1933 the U.S. Department of the War, Navy, and Commerce forms the Interdepartmental Screw Thread Committee. This committee’s work resulted in the National Bureau of standards handbook H28, first printed in 1944. Finally in 1945, Britain and the U.S. reached an agreement to standardize to one system of screw sizes and thread pitches. It was decided that the American system developed by William Sellers would be combined with the Whitworth system taking the best from both inventors. Modern history brings development of the metrics system which Britain converted to in 1965. In 1974 the U.S. Industrial Fasteners Institute issued the first U.S. Metric Fastener Standards. |
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WEEE/RoHS
Updated: January 2006 Even though information updates have been floating around we still find that many of our customers refer to RoHS as the “lead free” initiative. This update hopefully allows you to see the larger scope of both of the initiatives. |
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