NONOX World

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.

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.

Drilling, thread forming and fastening in one step, even into stainless sheet. The bi-metal NONOX self-tapping screw pairs an A2 stainless body with a friction-welded hardened steel point that forms the thread without cutting chips, giving 50% more holding force and needing fewer fixing points.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.