Can we setup a screw system for a community? - Research

Can we setup a screw system for a community?

projectkamp

With contributions from

acoira

Started 3y. Edited 1y.Started almost 4 years ago. Last edit over 1 year ago.

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In Progress

Screws are essential in a community. They are useful for building and can be reused. But, probably this won't happen. Specially in groups. Many different screw types, sizes, coatings and bit heads. Sorting is hard. So if something gets disassembled screws are thrown into a bucket. The Blackhole. We would like to reduce the amount of variety in our screws so we can buy in bulk and easily sort them out after disassembly. This topic is to find out what would be a good system for us and others to adapt

More Information

2470

1 The Problems we have with screws

Published 3y. Edited 3y.Published almost 4 years ago. Last edit almost 4 years ago.

1: Too many different head sizes.   There is the difference between Torx, Flathead, Phillips etc. However even if we decide for Torx (we likley will) there is Torx 10, 15,20,25 etc. Which often results into people using the wrong bit. Specially in a community. 2: Too many lengths.   It’s tempting to get specific screws for specific jobs. 15MM , 18MM, 20MM, 25MM etc. You easily end up with a huge collection. This makes it very hard to sort them out later since the length is very similar. Ideally the difference can be quickly seen visually so sorting would realistically happen. 3: Materials and coating There are many different types and coatings for screw. Zinc coated, steel, Stainless, etc. Some weather resistant other cheaper, other harder etc. As always each one has its benefit but just adding 1 other material variation to the entire collections doubles the amount. So a delicate decision 4: Type of screw. There are screws with a pre-drill, for metal, long neck, thick groove etc. Again many variations. We would like to bring it down to one type per length.  5: Consistency Find a supplier of screws that is stable and would still provide the same models after a few years so the system stays running. We are aware cutting any of the above would reduce performance. Since specific screws are usually for specific jobs. But we like to think we can have a basic screw collection that functions in a community and is easy to maintain. Any suggestions?

2 Problem #1- Decide on which heads

Published 3y.Published almost 4 years ago.

There are many head variations. We decided to focus mainly on Torx. It's easy for non builders and your really feel when you have the correct bit (unlike philips which is easily misused) For the bigger sizes we will use Hex head. We will also reduces the amount of different torx and hex heads focussing on only on: Torx 10 - Small (ideally we can skip this as well and use 20, but not sure yet) Torx 20 - Medium Torx 30 - Large Hex Head 13 - Large Contrustion Hopefully everything can fit in this range!

3 Problem #3/4 Diversity might be better?

Published 3y.Published almost 4 years ago.

Originally we aimed to go for one screw type for all with a smilair coating for all our screws. But looking closer at our own screw collection there might actually be an advantge to use different types and coatings. Some are full threaded others a partially threaded some are zinc coated others galvanised. As far as we are aware the effects of having different threads and coatings wouldnt really effect us or the work, since we are setting up a general screw system anyway. Would be curious if anyone sees big downsides of this? The main downside we see is that it will probably require different suppliers. Which doesnt make Problem #5 easier. However this viartiy does makes them all look different and easy to recognize/sort in the future. We could for instance say. All 40MM screws are zinc coated with 3/4 thread. All 50MM screws are galvanized with 2/3 thread.

4 Problem #2 Define our lengths

Published 3y. Edited 3y.Published almost 4 years ago. Last edit almost 4 years ago.

We've started to select the sizes we think we need here. For now we are thinking of: 10MM 20MM 40MM 50MM 60MM 80MM 100MM 150MM 120MM 200MM That said in the "medium" category we might be able to reduce a few lengths. Any suggestions? We've started a spreadsheet here in case you want to comment directly or keep an eye on it https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uAcxN6JsWzuVd-qkYeSO7-U_ThVbXVoNII-XlQRVtmk/edit#gid=0

5 Screws are bought

Published 3y. Edited 3y.Published over 3 years ago. Last edit over 3 years ago.

We selected our screws and got the system up and running. We ordered everything from the spreadsheet above except the 50MM, hoping we could reduce that one. For the brands we choose Woodies and Spax. Few reasons: They are visually different from each other, seem somewhat stable companies and availability. We’ve also ordered a bunch of Hex screws (Hoenderdaal), but they fall a bit outside the screw system since we likely wont use them much on a daily base.   We got about +/-1000 pieces for the smaller ones (Trox 10/20) and +/- 500 for the bigger ones (torx 30) to start with Now it’s time to use. We probably have to make some sacrifices along the way, so let’s test and see how resilient the system is and if we can stick to it.

6 Screw system in video

Published 3y.Published over 3 years ago.

In Update #70 we are building the wooden interior of our ruin and show you our screw system. Have a look at 21:59 to see how it works and how its setup

7 Upgrade: Screw on the boxes

Published 3y. Edited 3y.Published over 3 years ago. Last edit over 3 years ago.

Something many of you suggested. "Glue the screw on the outisde of the box as an example to make it even easier to sort out." Sounds like a great idea so we did it.

8 Stock control

acoira

Published 2y.Published about 2 years ago.

After we set our screw system we also increased our storage space in the workspace. This allows us to store bigger amount of screws to avoid too much travelling or hassle whenever we need new screws for our projects. So now we are ordering screws once a year at the beggining of the season to restock our screws. The decission of how many screws we should have in stock is still in the air since every year we have different projects happening with different needs. We have created a spreadsheet where we keep track of the amount of the screws we use, with this we can roughly know what are the screws we use the most and buy for the coming season what we roughly spect we need. The image shows the amount of screws used since we set up the screw system.

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