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MFDA Offers “A Brief History of Screws”

Highlights from “A Brief History of Screw Threads” in the Metropolitan Fastener Distributors Association Fastener Black Book:

• Archimedes first explained the mechanical principle of the screw as a form of a wedge.

• During the first century BC, Romans and Greeks used the screw principle for pressing clothes, olives and wine.

• Romans invented hand-cut screws.

 • Leonardo da Vinci developed the first floating mandrel for screw cutting.

• About 1568 engineer Jaques Besson invented the useable screw cutting lathe.

• Henry Maudsley invented the modern lathe in 1797, which could cut thread with precision.

• Joseph Whitworth presented a paper of “The Uniform System of Screw Threads” to the British Institute of Civil Engineers in Great Britain in 1841 proposing standardization of thread design.

• In 1864 Philadelphia toolmaker William Sellers proposed a 60 degree thread profile with a flattened pyramid top, which required one instead of three kinds of cutters and one lathe instead of two.

• During World War II replacement nuts and bolts from American factories for tanks didn’t match the British thread profiles, leading to the United Thread Standard in 1949.

• The International Organization for Standardization was founded in 1947 to advance consensus standards.

For more historical details, read “A Brief History of Screw Threads,” in MFDA’s Black Book.

The first edition of MFDA’s Fastener Black Book includes inch/metric equivalents, standard dimensions, fastener grades and reference tables and a thread pitch identification gage.  For online information: mfda.us.  ©2010 GlobalFastenerNews.com