Reprint from Fastener World Magazine, Vol. 164

It was over thirty years ago that I first walked through a fastener manufacturing plant. I was just completing a cooperative education program with General Motors and looking to complete my engineering education with another summer internship. As luck would have it I was invited to interview with a fastener manufacturer near my home.

That first introduction to manufacturing of fasteners would serve to begin a lifelong interest and appreciation for the way that fasteners are made and, more generally, with all manufacturing processes. I was particularly impressed with my first look at how fastener threads are formed. Never in a million years would I have expected that threads could be formed by squeezing and rolling parts between two, grooved flat plates.