Bolted

A few weeks ago, while doing some work at our church, we had a “nuts and bolts” discussion (for those of you that don’t know, a nuts & bolts discussion is a very detailed discussion that gets down to the most essential components of something) about a kind of strange topic. A guy asked the difference between a bolt and a screw.

Well, a couple of people thought they knew the answer and we heard a number of detailed explanations. A couple of people thought that the shape of the head and the fact that you needed a screwdriver, made it a screw, but then someone pointed out that machine screws are intended to be used with a nut and could be considered a bolt. A proposal was made that the shafts of bolts are not tapered like screws, but again, not all screw shafts are tapered…

One of the smarter ones of the group decided that a screw is an externally threaded fastener that is tightened by applying torque to the head, causing it to be threaded into the material it will hold. A bolt is an externally threaded fastener that is used in conjunction with a nut. But of course, this didn’t satisfy anyone — it just sounded smarter than the other explanations.

The words bolt and screw seem to be ambiguous — they are probably better used to describe how the threaded device is used.

So the discussion never really ended, everyone just went home. I really don’t know the difference between a bolt and screw — I’ve never been bolted….
— 30 —