Wadkin

[nyamo_iaint]

I'm fascinated by the engineering thought process that must have gone into all these different screw/thread combinations.
It doesn't strike me as efficient or convenient either during construction or maintenace.

Perhaps it was a case of "we've got all this old screw stock, might as well make use of them somewhere".
Sounds as bad as when I was trying to work out whether Japanese and Australian tap fittings were compatible - I'm still not sure about that, or trying to find a 19mm auger bit (3/4" - I can get 18 and 20, but 19 seems uncommon).

Best of luck.

[Chris Hall]

I think (my guess) it was less a question of using up old fastener stock than the following:

-A quantity of parts had already been made by Wadkin to accept the BSW fasteners, and it made more economic sense to use them up then to scrap them or re-machine them to accept a changed fastener standard.
-A quantity of parts from other suppliers (like knobs, adjusting levers, etc) was already on hand at Wadkin, parts made to the British standard threads and again, it was more cost effective to use the parts than to scrap them and order new parts with metric threads.

In other cases, the differences in fastener standards make a certain amount of sense. The use of fine thread for the fence plate adjusting screws, instead of regular Whitworth thread is logical. Remember that there are fine and coarse thread options in most ISO metric standards as well, though the coarse thread is by far the most common, just like it is with imperial fasteners.

The use of a special thread for the electrical box mounting screws is not that unusual a situation either. The electrical industry has its own standards it applies to products, and Wadkin would have purchased the electrical boxes, not manufactured them themselves.

What is most frustrating is to find the mix of so many standards on the same machine, and to find the BSW, BSF, and BA fasteners rather difficult to source compared to other fasteners. This makes the process of sorting the machine out a bit slower than I might like. Fortunately I figured this out early enough so as to not have messed anything up.

Japanese fasteners are interesting, having been through some issues with my old Toyota Landcruiser in that regard. Metric bolts in Europe and Australia would be done to the DIN standards, whereas Japanese bolts conform to JIS standards - this means different head sizes on the same size of bolts.

Also, if you have Japanese Phillips head fasteners in any abundance, it is better to obtain a JIS-spec Phillips driver than use a regular Phillips driver.

[durbien]

Also, if you have Japanese Phillips head fasteners in any abundance, it is better to obtain a JIS-spec Phillips driver than use a regular Phillips driver.

Is there any advantage or disadvantage to using JIS screwdrivers on Phillips screws? I suppose - it allows you to possibly overtorque and break/strip the screw?

[Chris Hall]

Here's a page explaining the difference in JIS Phillips to others:

http://www.vesseltools.com/hand-tools/s ... ducts.html

another page you might find interesting:

http://www.webbikeworld.com/motorcycle- ... ewdrivers/

I would think the best course of action is to use JIS Phillips for Japanese fasteners, and regular Phillips on the Western ones.

Note that JIS spec Phillips fasteners are going to show up on most any product from Asia, not just Japan. It is well worth having a set of JIS drivers in various sizes if you want to do any repair work on an item made in one of those countries.

[nyamo_iaint]

Gah! ... and then you throw pozidrive screws into the mix (Ikea seem to use those, at least they do on our kitchen cabinets), which are of course almost but not quite the same it just gets silly. I have a set or two of small Japanese jewellers screw drivers, I'll have to closely compare them with my non-Japanese set now.

"The wonderful thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from." - either Adm Grace Hopper or Andy Tanenbaum (both famous computer scientists).

[Chris Hall]

Standardization has its benefits of course, however the flip side is that a standard can get entrenched and over time inflexible as it is too costly to change when it is well established, even if technology has improved and widened possible approaches to a given technical arena.

[Brian]

Chris, wow they sent along a nice few work holding accessories with the Zimmerman, awesome

Hoping you're planning a post about the classes for those lonely souls that wound up working the entire weekend (not carpentry lol) and being mr mom.