Screws hold our stuff together.
Nuts & Bolts & Screws
I’ve been struggling with a couple of ideas to discuss with you and none of them has gained any traction. That says to me that they’re not ready yet for daylight. Therefore since this is a newsletter for woodworkers, let’s get down to some nuts and bolts, and screws.
The first lecture I ever gave was in 6th grade shop class. Not because I was noted then as a great and riveting speaker. No. We all had to do a presentation in class on some subject be it woodworking, metals, or melting plastics into bowl shapes in the oven.
My own talk was on the mighty wood screw. The screw as we all remember is one of the six classic Basic Machines. This list starts with the mighty wedge, which is a part of every tool in the shop except the hammer [I maintain], the inclined plane [which looks to me like a wedge], the lever for lifting our machines, the pulley to run our various wedge shaped cutting tools, the elegant wheel and axle, and the screw to complete the list. Memory does not serve if I mentioned these other items to my nodding classmates, but I had drawn up a poster to illustrate the screw’s 3 main sections: the head, the shank, and the threads.
Seat edges must have strained under the weight of my classmates leaning forward to spy my magic marker work. Or so memory has it.
In any event, I regaled my fellow students next with information on head types: oval, flat, and round head. Why an oval head you may ask? Because they fit into a cupped raised washer. Très elegant especially with brass screws. Flat heads can sink neatly beneath the surface into countersunk holes which could then be capped. Or the countersink got drilled into something like a hinge leaf so the head sat flat to it. Round head screws were used, as we all know, by the makers of the castle gates to keep out the barbarians.
Now I don’t think I talked about the drive type back then as nothing but slotted screws were used. Today we have Phillips and Square Drive and Torx head screws in a truly bewildering array of bit driver sizes. But back then slotted screws were far and away the most common screw head type. Although let it be known that Mr. Phillips, yes of Portland, OR, had patented his screw and screwdriver back in the 1930’s. General Motors in its war and automobile efforts used them and Mr. Phillips was wise enough to license them to other manufacturers. I presume he did well. Then we have Mr. Robertson who had the U.S. patent for his Robertson drive screw in 1911. The square drive however was patented in the U.S., hang onto your hats, in 1875. [Yeah, square drive screws did not get invented in the 1980’s like I thought. They just came back into use]. But Mr. Robertson did not believe in licensing. Ford Motor used them but then only in Canada as they couldn’t count on their supply. His screws disappeared for a time until resurfacing more recently.
Those sixth grade classmates of mine who had not yet taken advantage of nap time during my presentation were next surprised by the importance of pre-drilling holes for the entrance of the screw. Who could overlook such a simple step? This work was done to prevent splitting in hardwood or dried softwoods, or bunging up the hole for the screwdriver. For a wood screw one also needed to drill two holes, one deeper hole for the threads as wide as the shank the threads wrapped around. Then you had to drill another shorter one for the upper shank.
At that time most screws in woodworking were also put in by hand. Where do you think the idea for the Twist came about? [Sorry.] A long slow and laborious effort was needed to wear away one’s elbow and get the screw in to fit. Few of us thought back then that shaping a screwdriver tip to the slot size was worth the effort. Silly us.
Once I finished my lecture, I forget now whether it was the applause, the procession of being carried to my seat on my mates’ shoulders, or [more likely in those days of the 3 Stooges] of being tripped on my way back to my chair that I remember most fondly.
What has not left me however was that lecture’s accuracy and the presentiment of that choice in my life.As I thought to myself yesterday: how much time have I spent putting in screws? I was hanging the doors on my new shop and looking at my Drill-dex and taking bits in and out of it and using my drill guns and running in screws and I thought, ‘This has been going on a long time.’
Screws are so ubiquitous in our lives, hidden from sight or not. Our understanding of them, rightie-tightie for instance, is important when fixing a machine or putting in hinges. They are semi-permanent but can hold parts together in when used in compression and far better than a nail or pin or dowel. Yet for all their ease of use we tend to forget them although they hold this laptop, my oven door, to the screws that hold my car together. Everywhere. Witold Rybczynski, the architectural historian, even wrote a book about them, ‘One Good Turn.’ And in an essay for the NYT I think back at the turn of the century WR opined that the most important invention of the 20th century was the screw. Given that Archimedes used one he was only off by 21 centuries or so.
One last thing before I list some tips about screws. I never use wood screws now, and I stopped long ago. You have to do that double drill thing for the larger shank near the head and then for the screw portion. Tedious and not stronger. I use fully threaded screws now all the time. They can be sheet metal screws, trim head screws which have a nice tiny diameter head, or sheet rock screws but the ones with a coarse thread. Take that tip and use it.
Here are some other tips putting screws in:
Tip: Lubricate your screws with paste or beeswax or soap or even rub the threads on a candle to ease the screw’s insertion. Think of using a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down.
Tip: Always, always drive in and then remove a steel screw to cut the threads for a brass one. You’ll know when the brass head wants to break off but only just a millisecond before it does. Then it’s extraction time for you which is painful and so easy to avoid. Just make sure the threads on the steel and brass screws match pretty close in pitch which is how they wind around the shank of the screw. Juice the steel screw, drive it in, take it out, and then juice the brass screw and insert it.
Did I mention clocking the screw heads so they all point the same way? I’ll save that for another time.
A Turn of the Screw
Thanks again to Highland Woodworking for their continuing support of our educational efforts. Please check out their site if you need tools, hardware, band saw blades, the Wood Slicer is awesome, or just some general information.
https://www.highlandwoodworking.com/
And if you have a woodworking question you’d like answered on my upcoming podcasts, send it along. I would be happy to help. We’re compiling them now. There are no stupid questions. Send them in!
studio@Northwestwoodworking.com
Setting Up Shop Video Series
Join us for the Setting Up Shop Video Series. It starts Jan. 11, 2025. Lots of information on tools, machinery, lay-out, and shop flow. Plus we build some cool shop projects like this curved laminated tool rack.
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