More than 200 billion fasteners are used every year in the United States. The sizes, shapes, and types of fastener options are staggering: from miniature screws to three-inch-long bolts and all the custom options in between, it’s impossible to truly comprehend all the ways they can be used in our lives.
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Today, we’re going to focus on custom shoulder bolt options. Defined by their ability to allow for the rotation of attached parts, shoulder bolts are relied on by a number of U.S. industries. Let’s take a look at the three components that make up these vital fasteners.
- Head: There are many customer shoulder bolt options when it comes to the head. Typical shoulder bolts have modified fillister heads in which the diameter is approximately twice the height. Unlike standard fillister machine screws, however, they also have flat tops with 30 to 50° chamfers on the heads’ outer diameters. Truss heads and low-head fillisters (in addition to external hex-head and square-head bolts) are available as well.
- Shoulder: The shoulder is (unsurprisingly) the most important aspect of the shoulder bolt. Standard commercial-grade options range in diameter from one-quarter inch to two inches, but any diameter can be made as a custom part. In terms of length, there are a number of incremental shoulder lengths as measured from under the head to the bottom of the shoulder, including the head-undercut dimension.
- Thread: There is one main rule when it comes to thread diameter: it must not exceed the shoulder diameter. Traditional commercial-grade shoulder bolts have UNC class 3A threads; for example, a commercial-grade bolt with a one-quarter inch diameter shoulder has #10-24 threads. In terms of thread length, most shoulder bolts are relatively short — but, of course, can be customized to almost any specification. Just like machine screws, shoulder bolts are held to a tolerance below the nominal length. That being said, tolerances vary slightly among manufacturers.
Custom miniature shoulder screw options encompass just about any realistic dimensions and requests you can imagine, explaining why these fasteners are used everywhere, from air- and spacecraft to basic consumer products. Their unique attributes and profound versatility have allowed us to expand their use far and wide.
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