Fasteners

Ideal for mounting steel or aluminium profiles and sandwich panels onto steel or aluminium structures, with no pre-drilling. An A2 stainless body friction-welded to a hardened steel drill point, a flanged hexagon head, and a captive conical spring washer with a vulcanised EPDM seal that keeps the fixing watertight.

The rivet joined metal before welding took over: bridges, boilers, ships and building frames. How the factory head, the glowing rivet and the blacksmith's catching funnel worked together, plus the special rivets still in use today, from tubular and POP rivets to drive chains and aircraft skins.

A washer spreads the load, like a ski on snow, and protects the finished surface. Wood construction, thick, decorative, body, sealing, contact and beam washers, plus the captive washer and the combi nut: which one belongs where, and why the material grade must never be the place you economise.

Fastening to sheet, tube or hollow section without cutting a thread or welding a nut on. How the rivet nut works like a blind rivet, how to set the tool up, how to size it, and the open, closed, countersunk and micro-flange types in aluminium, steel and NONOX stainless.

Off-the-peg does not fit everyone. We offer more than 35 thousand kinds of NONOX stainless fastener, but when none of them fits, we simply take the measurements: a short note on ordering a custom fastener.

Two ways to anchor into concrete and stone: the internally threaded drive-in wedge anchor, which a wedge expands along its slot, and the ring anchor bolt, which grips harder the more you tighten the nut. Both in NONOX stainless (A2) and acid-resistant (A4), M6 – M24, available from stock.

Some sell screws by the piece, some by the kilo. Threaded rod, however, is customarily asked for by the metre. Economical cutting, cut-to-size ordering, trapezoidal threads, welding, galling - and why the stainless version's 700 N/mm2 beats the traditional 4.6.

Whether civilisations unknown to us exist is not a question for me. Where there are components, they must be fixed to one another - so screws must exist elsewhere too. But on the Moon there is no industry yet: everything has to be taken from here, from Earth.

The diameter of the pre-drilling always falls between the core diameter and the nominal diameter of the screw. Sheet thickness, sheet material and the drilling technology all shift it. Always carry out a trial before beginning mass production.

Screws hold together the greater part of the man-made world, and the most striking difference between them shows itself in their head design. Hex-head bolts, cylindrical head hex socket screws, headless screws and grub screws, countersunk, raised countersunk and “D” head screws.

Man created the screw, and with it the problem. Security screws can only be fitted with a special purpose-made tool. Snake-eye, pin Torx, triangle-head, McGard and one-way screws, security nuts - and the cheapest security screw of all, the carriage bolt.

The suction effect of the wind can reach 4-5 times the dead weight of the roofing material. The storm clip costs about as much as the tile itself; nailing holds only the top third. The tinsmith's screw is simple, cheap and the most aesthetic solution.