Who Invented the Screw and How Has the Screw Evolved

Pretty much everything in the world uses some sort of fastener to hold things together, among other things, and these days there are dozens if not hundreds of different types of fasteners and screws. Bolts, nuts, screws, rivets cotter pins and more are used every day in many different ways. While the invention of one of the original fasteners, the screw, is a couple thousand years old, the screw didn’t change a whole lot until the last couple hundred of years and these changes have brought other benefits to other types of fasteners.

It’s commonly believed that the first screw with threads appeared about 2400 years ago in 400BC and it was used primarily in presses. The turning of the screw would cause the two pieces of wood or other material held together by the screw to move closer together and thus press whatever was inside. The screw was also adapted by Archimedes on a larger scale for irrigation the Archimedes screw is still used today for irrigation and chocolate fountains. The screw was also used in Roman surgical instruments around 50AD. The screw didn’t do much else until the 1700’s when lathes were developed that could create better threading, however screws and fasteners were far from interchangeable. It wouldn’t be until the 1840’s when the first standardized screws would appear and the first standardized screw had threading with a 55 degree angle. America and Europe developed different standard sizes independently and it wasn’t until World War I and World War II when standards and innovations underwent a move toward wider standardization and the time since has seen improvements in technology and materials as well as in many varieties of fastener besides a conventional screw.

One of the biggest recent changes in fasteners is that quality has greatly improved. Firstly, techniques and materials have undergone steady improvement in all areas of tools, including fasteners, and this has made for stronger and more reliable screws and more. Another thing that happened is that the manufacturing of fasteners moved out of and back into America due to concerns over quality. As part of this move, the Fastener Quality Act of 1990 not only ensured that fasteners made in America were of higher quality and safer to use, and thus the reliability of these fasteners led to increased demand for American made fasteners. This improvement in quality also led to American fasteners being preferred for use in the aerospace inventory where quality is an obvious make or break feature.

Moving into the future, fasteners are undergoing continuous improvement. The direction for the future seems to lie with “smart fasteners” that will change form and shape to better work in whatever environment they’re used in. These fasteners don’t exist yet, however with research, development and creation of new alloys their creation is inevitable, and these new fasteners will be stronger, lighter and have different properties than anything available before and at present. In short, the last couple of centuries have seen great improvements in the world of fasteners and that improvement is still ongoing.