#4 Thankful for YOU

Did you know the first screw factory was a failure? Sadly, it's true. 

In 1760, two English brothers from Burton on Trent, Job & William Wyatt, patented a screw-cutting machine (Patent No. 751) which appears to be the first major advancement capable of true mass-production. Their machine could cut 10 screws per minute and was considered one of the precursors to mass production machinery. The Wyatt’s machine made a labor of several minutes into one of six or seven seconds while producing a much higher quality product. It took the brothers 16 years to raise the capital to open a factory but for some reason, the Wyatt brothers’ business was not successful. 

Poor Job and William.

So this week we're thankful for our customers that keep our doors open.

Thanks to all of you!

Here is an advertisement from an old nut & bolt company back in 1884 from Darlaston, England.

Click here to read more about the history of nuts & bolts in Darlaston, England, dating back to 1800.

#3 Thankful for Olives & Grapes

The first screws go back to the Ancient Greeks (or Ancient Romans, depending on where you look for information.) Both Ancient Civilizations would press olives and grapes to make olive oil and wine (still loved today by both the Greeks, Italians and many others) and they used screw presses, a type of machine press in which the ram is driven up and down by a screw...like this.

From Wikipedia's Screw Press Page: the screw shaft can be driven by a handle or a wheel. It works by using a coarse screw to convert the rotation of the handle or drive-wheel into a small downward movement of greater force.

Basically the screw press creates a strong force to be exerted on an object with minimal effort from rotating the handle or wheel - the screw makes it possible. 

Thanks to the deliciousness of olive oil and wine, the screw was invented - so thanks grapes & olives! 

#2 Thankful to the Screw - Helix Vs Spiral

Our month of gratitude continues with us showing the difference between a spiral and a helix - we're thankful someone figured this out as all of our screws and bolts depend on it:

The words spiral and helix can be confusing as both are used to reference curves that "wind around". I have heard people refer to the length below the head, including the threads, of a screw as a spiral but that's wrong - it is a helix! A spiral is a curve that winds around a fixed point with a continuously increasing radius and a helix is a three -dimensional curve that twists around a cylinder at a constant inclined angle. If anything, sometimes a screw starts as a spiral and then turn into a helix...meaning the the point is a spiral but the shaft is a helix. Have a look at the helix on a bolt and screw:

#1 Thankful for Fasteners

Fasteners are an integral part of infrastructure - our buildings, our objects, our cars. We can find fasteners in just about everything. All the things that facilitate our productivity, our happiness, our safety, all being held together with these sometimes little and sometimes large things that clamp parts together called fasteners.

And since it's November, we're going to show a little gratitude by sharing some interesting fastener facts, starting with this one:

The difference between a 'bolt' & a 'screw': bolt refers to a male fastener that requires a nut to function, whereas screw refers to a male fastener that is mated into a matching female thread in a work piece. The bolt and nut assembly requires two tools to tighten or loosen, whereas a screw only requires one as the part with the female threaded hole is typically stationary.