Threaded fasteners are fastening tools that feature raised spiral ridges on an angle wrapped around a shaft. These threads serve to connect fasteners together and keep them attached by preventing linear motion without a corresponding rotation. They are often found along the entire length or a portion of the shafts of screws, bolts or nuts. Most threads are on a 60° angle and are either exterior (male) or interior (female). The pitch of a thread is the distance between two individual threads, which can be large or small. Large pitches are considered coarse threads, while small pitches are fine.
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Threaded fasteners are essential utilities throughout industry, commerce and consumer products contexts. Industrial fasteners are used in the construction of homes, industrial process equipment, furniture, vehicles and wide variety of other applications. Screws are also important in homes and places of business, where they are used to hold shelves together, suspend light fixtures and hang paintings; threaded fasteners are used in a very extensive variety of important functions. For this reason, they are offered in all kinds of configurations and in many compositions to suit the varied needs of industry and commerce. Metals like steel and stainless steel as well as plastic materials can be made into fasteners of all shapes and sizes.
Threads are applied to fasteners by two main methods: rolling and cutting. Thread rolling involves a die with the threaded profile pressed into it. The fastener is placed between two dies and the thread profile is transferred via cold working, which means the process is performed at or near room temperature. Hot working processes, in contrast, are performed at temperatures beyond the working material's recrystallization point in order to make it more easily formable. Cold working can be advantageous because it produces stronger products and involves less of an oxidation risk. Thread cutting is done when smaller thread diameters are needed. In this process, a rotating lathe cuts a thread pattern into a blank metal. This process is much slower than the rolling method, but specialized threading can be produced in small quantities by cutting. Unified standards for fastener threading are still in development. Currently, the competing metric and inch-sized thread standards are both widely used. Whatever the threaded fastener size or composition, it is important to correctly pair it with its application in order to ensure its proper function and longevity.