Safe Speed Forums

Brass sign, brass screws.

Stainless steel sets up an electrolytic action with brass, and corrodes in no time!

On stainless steel signs, we use either stainless screws, or if the customer wants a domed cap, plated steel screws, and heavily chromed brass domes.
The chrome is good enough to stand up to a spell on the belt sander, and stops the brass coming into contact with the stainless sign.

I don't agree that brass is unsuitable, as it depends on the quality of brass chosen. Unfortunately stockists are losing the ability to provide decent quality by suppliers keen to make more profit, as the price of raw materials goes through the roof!

There is brass and then there's brass!
CZ106 "forming" or "cartridge" brass, which can be "spun" or extruded (into cartridges for ammunition for instance) - it has less zinc in it. Machined edges usually have a razor sharp edge.
CZ108 is less yellow, and is still springy - it can be bent and formed without cracking and is still suitable for screws and fastenings.
CZ120 "compo" or "leaded" brass is easy to machine, more gold in colour, but if you try and bend it, it cracks suddenly. Guess what - it has added lead in it! No use at all for screws!

There are then brasses from India and the like which vary in quality even within the same batch!
They make bells and ornaments out of it, and I cannot think what they do to make it so bad!
Their screws appear to be so weak, one might think they had added aluminium!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

Presumably for aesthetics given his profession.

The long shanked screws you are referring to are self-tapping wood screws. Great, as you note, for biting in wood, but less able to enter a tapped hole in metal, for example.

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Regulation without education merely creates more criminals.

If you look at the profile of a wood screw, you will see that modern screws tend to have less of a centre , and broader cutting thread.
This pulls it into the wood without the need to displace the material occupied by the screw by pre-drilling. However, it only works well with woods (or chipboard) were the material is easily displaced.

Start screwing them into decent hard wood, and the pressure needed to force the screw into the wood places a great deal of strain on the screw.

In most cases, a GOOD QUALITY screw is essential, but in the dash to keep costs down, a lot of rubbish screws have found their way onto the market.

As I implied before - I don't mind paying for a decent screw - but they are becoming harder and harder to find.

Tone - make of that what you will!!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

Must resist, must resist..

So it’s fair to say that you get brassed-off with some screws.

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

Enough to drive me up the wall - round the bend - and anywhere that space does not prevent the use of the proper use of a screwdriver!

It's easy to blame suppliers or manufacturers - but customers who put up with poor quality and don't demand better are equally to blame!
Americans are much better at DEMANDING better service or quality than we are.

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

It isn't that the customers don't want better quality it is that they are not prepared to pay for it. Put out two boxes of screws, crap ones at 2p and quality ones at 3p and see which ones get most sales.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

I was actually thinking of machine screws rather than wood screws when I started this thread and it was prompted by the fact that some new light switches were supplied with slotted screws. But this morning I was idly playing with my collection of computer screws and I noticed that some of them have a combination head - a pozi head with a slot as well. Damn clever .

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Nowt to do with screw heads but...

I hate "Easy Outs" with a passion. I used to repair motorcycles for a living, had a few folks appear with say a cylinder head with a sheared off stud and a hole drilled in the stud (usually off centre ) and a snapped off "Easy Out" stuck in the hole!! ...."Can you get this broken stud out?" Yup sure can, but can you afford to pay me for how long its going to take to get it out now it has that bl***y thing stuck in it?!

Easy Outs should not be used to try to remove studs or bolts that have sheared off because they are corroded in place.

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You only need two tools - WD40 and duct tape. If it doesn't move and it should, use WD40. If it moves and it shouldn't, use duct tape. :0)

So who knows the differance between a screw and a bolt ?
I assumed a bolt was only partly threaded


http://www.boltscience.com/pages/faq.htm
What is the difference between a bolt and a screw?

Historically the difference between a bolt and a screw was that the screw was threaded to the head whereas the bolt had a plain shank. However I would say that now this could cause you a problem if you made this assumption when specifying a fastener. The definition used by the Industrial Fastener Institute (IFI) is that screws are used with tapped holes and bolts are used with nuts.

Obviously a standard 'bolt' can be used in a tapped hole or with a nut. The IFI maintain that since this type of fastener is normally used with a nut then it is a bolt. Certain short length bolts are threaded to the head - they are still bolts if the main usage is with nuts. Screws are fastener products such as wood screws, lag screws and the various types of tapping screws. The IFI terminology and definition has been adopted by ASME and ANSI.

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nigel_bytes

I know the difference between a weasel and a stoat.

One’s weasily recognisable and the other s’toatally different.

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

One of the founders of the publishing house Hodder & Stoughton use to have business card with a picture of a Stoat on it because he was fed up of people pronouncing his name incorrectly.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Bronze screws are still used on boats and are much better than brass when going into hardwood. They really are very good - but pricey!

http://www.classicmarine.co.uk/boatstor ... Position=1

Less zinc in Bronze, and added tin - the copper content is usually in the region of 85% so more expensive.
It is harder, and also less brittle than brass, and machines and forms accurately, so IS more suited to hardwood than brass.

Pricewise, I see they are 20% dearer for their brass screws than I currently pay at a little hardware store I have discovered in my travels!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!