Ballinator – History & Lore of 32nd of an Inch Bolts
An evening pause: Some engineering history for the weekend. I know the title makes this sound boring, but it is worth watching, because it illustrates the incredible complexity of some of what we think are the simplest tools. I wonder if the engineers in the space business are thinking about these issues.
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
Readers!
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For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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An evening pause: Some engineering history for the weekend. I know the title makes this sound boring, but it is worth watching, because it illustrates the incredible complexity of some of what we think are the simplest tools. I wonder if the engineers in the space business are thinking about these issues.
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
All the dimension tables made my hair hurt & triggered brain fog. At the end of the day I will still rummage through my assortments of wrenches and sockets and, through trial and error, use the one that fits. The can of Old Milwaukee at the end looked refreshing.
Regarding engineers in the space business thinking about these issues, I would think yes, very important. During extravehicular tasks involving nuts and bolts there is no time to be floating back and forth to the tool box to find the tool that fits.
A very long time ago, I worked in a bike shop that sold Raleigh bicycles. There were some models of Raleigh bikes that had an interesting assortment of parts standards, including imperial, metric, and Whitworth bolts. Whitworth nuts are measured point-to-point, rather than flat-to-flat. The bikes were sold with a hand tool that had cut-outs to fit those Whitworth bolts.
Mein Gott, but that guy’s got an annoying, nasal voice! It danged near made me not watch more than 30 seconds of the video. Cringe.
It takes folks like him to keep the world working….unlike, say
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Williams_(media_personality)
I like Adam Savage—folks here may not like his politics—but his fondness for prop blasters and guns points towards his stance as a cover:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jxDSEulomCg&pp=ygUJI3Byb3BzcGVy
Larry:
I concur.
painful.
Should I be embarrassed for having most of those tools and sizes in the opening of his presentation?
SI (standard instruments) and SAE differences have always given me issues… But he didn’t even cover “metric” which adds a whole new complication to “”everything””.
For instance there is no equivalent in manufacturing, only getting it “close”… For instance tools made in China on metric machines can only get sizes “close” to standard because measurements in millimeters have no equivalent and are slightly off to fractions of an inch… which means their parts and tools usually don’t fit American bolts and nuts.
True, but I actually think some looser tolerances are good.
Jamie Hyneman loves the monkey wrench in that it has a lot of ‘slop.’
He hates how today’s CAD/CAM bunch don’t think about repairs when they cram stuff in.
Jamie had to take a fender off just to get at battery.
Just try to collect all the automotive and motorcycle spark plug wrenches and sockets.
You would think they would have settled on just a few. But everyone had to have their own.
When I was in design, I worked with many fasteners. Fasteners could be a significant portion of the weight of the science instruments that I designed, especially when the flange for the fasteners was considered. Using additive manufacturing (3-D printing) to eliminate the flanges and fasteners is one of the reasons why the Raptor 3 rocket engine is so much lighter than the Raptor 2.
I tended to avoid the hex head screws on flight hardware, because the heads had more material and weighed a little more. In addition to that, the clearance needed for the wrench tended to result in larger flanges. Socket head cap screws tended to be smaller and could use more compact tools to torque them properly.
Aerospace has a couple of its own screw specifications (National Aerospace Standard), where the threads conform to UNC and UNF. These specs included more that thread form, such as material strength, surface treatments, self-locking mechanisms, and the like.
I once made a gizmo that had a commercial cameral lens screw onto it, but I could not find the thread profile to put onto the drawing for the machinist to use for the mating threads. It was definitely not UNF. He told me to give him the lens and he would make it work, and sure enough he did.
For ground support equipment, I typically used the hex head screws.
Fasteners are an exciting topic. Well, maybe only exciting for engineers.
Why So Many Types of Screws?
Real Engineering (2019)
https://youtu.be/5cA9bZRHpZE
8:27