The Taming of the Screw フォーブス日本版二月号より
For centuries now the screw has held things together, and for almost as long it has been frustratingly inept at its central purpose. Concrete cracks when it is punctured by a screw. Plastic creeps away from the pressure, sliding down the threads so that even a tightened screw loosens almost instantly. Carmakers have to mold brass inserts into plastic parts to accept screws; otherwise they might loosen and cause a dreaded rattle.
Kenneth LeVey has a better idea. A product development director at Illinois Tool Works, the nation's biggest screwmaker, he has reinvented what the company dubs the threaded fastener in a way that lets it grip tight where it used to let loose--and compete with cheaper screws made by offshore rivals.
LeVey considered stamping screws instead, but engineers couldn't figure out how to get the threads all the way around the screw, and they couldn't make the screws unscrew. He dreamed up a new way of shaping the screws, using two spinning discs instead of dies, but it would have required expensive new equipment and the writeoff of millions of dollars in old equipment. So he returned to thread-rolling to try to revamp a century-old process.
By 2003 LeVey and ITW finally had a product. The company, under its Tapcon brand, began marketing large-diameter concrete screws with tiny, arrowhead-shape chisels wrapped around the screw, to cut into concrete like sharks' teeth. Builders previously had to insert adhesive into predrilled holes to get screws to hold when they attached wood framing to concrete foundations; now they can just use LeVey's breakthrough.
ITW's Parker says that the next application, finely threaded machine screws, could be the biggest of all. The machine screw is supposed to fit perfectly because it is screwed into a socket expressly designed to accept it. But invariably there is play between the threads of the bolt and the female insert because the teeth don't fit perfectly. Screwmakers add nylon inserts to keep fasteners tight, but this adds 7% to 10%to the cost of a screw. ITW's new model works better at no extra cost; it debuts later this year.
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