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.
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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.