In Praise of Exposed Screw Heads!

[Napier]

Ralph, you’re aces in my book.

So, I don’t know why our old Jeep had to have plastic hubcaps. It’s no secret that the wheels have nuts holding them on.

But it is especially weird that the plastic hubcaps actually had fake nuts molded into them. In fact they seemed to be designed to look like real, mounted wheels.

Now, I don’t do much work on cars, so I’m not always on top of these things. Therefore I found that it was especially fiendish of them to have designed the fake plastic nuts molded into the hubcaps to fit the lug wrench that came with the car.

So, our Jeep wound up with one less plastic nut on one of the wheels. Anybody who didn’t like that was welcome to soak their head.

[Terrifel]

Yeah, I got an exposed screw head you can praise…

[Valgard]

And while they’re redesigning stuff to make the fasteners accessible can they pretty please reduce the number of different sizes used? Working on my truck I sometimes feel like I actually need all the damn different size sockets I’ve got. Tell you what, go ahead and over-design some of the fasteners to reduce the variety. If my F150 had, say, 3 or 4 different sized bolts used for just about everything that would make my life so much easier.

Sure it’d mean some small bits that could be held in place with a tiny screw get a 1/4" bolt. Sure the truck would cost an extra few bucks (but think of the tooling they’d save). I’d be happier for it.

[Tim_T-Bonham.net]

@3acresandatruck

Now, I need to work on the plumbing around the house and I’m wondering why we seal all the pipes and wires and everything in the walls where you have to tear everything up to repair the smallest problem.

Well designed houses don’t have this problem.

My parents house was built in 1954, and the plumbing for the bathtub & shower is accessible via a removable panel in the back of the linen closet. The downstairs bathroom plumbing can be reached via a panel in the office closet. And all of the sinks have plumbing accessible inside cabinets.

[matt_mcl]

@t-bonham@scc.net

My parents house was built in 1954, and the plumbing for the bathtub & shower is accessible via a removable panel in the back of the linen closet.

Same here - my apartment’s bathtub plumbing is accessible via a panel in the living room (I cover it with a sofa). I’ve seen the landlord go in there on a couple of occasions - just pop off a few screws and presto.

Mine was built in 1922, btw.

[Darth_Sensitive]

@Stranger On A Train

Changing the oil on my Subarus has always been a piece of cake…because they place the oil pan up (where it is protected) but with direct access and plenty of swing room for a 17mm box wrench. Ditto for the oil filter, which is above a large plastic cover on the current car but accessible by a little swing away hatch held in place by three easily removed and replaced plastic quarter-turn fasteners. The current car is a little more difficult that those past, only because the suspension squats so low that I can just barely get the oil pan under there without putting it on stands, but it still takes me less time than it would just to drive to the oil change place (and I don’t have to worry about some Future President of America forgetting to torque down the oil pan plug).

As CalMeacham says, countersinking or counterboring screws and then covering them with a small plug works fine to prevent snagging (although not always possible or convenient). However, industrial designers like things to look as if there was no screw there, ever, and no way to get at it. When I beg an explanation I’m told that it’s all about “power” and “energy” and “flow”, these terms used in a context that makes only a very limited amount of sense to me.

If you look at equipment that was not touched by an ID–construction equipment, say, or jet aircraft cockpits–you’ll find plenty of exposed fasteners. But on something like an automobile, which has been engineered six ways from zero and then attacked by teams of beret-wearing aestheticists, you’ll never find that last screw and will end up just wrenching that bit of plastic away from whatever it is attached too, then reattach it with plenty of epoxy and plastic zip-ties.

Stranger

Forgot to mention that it’s too low slung to get up on ramps, so it has to be jacked up onto stands, then the filter is hard to get good torque on. Oh well - that’s my one real complaint so far.

[Carson_O_Genic]

@ralph124c

I wish cars were like Captain Nemo’s submarine-exposed rivets and bolts everywhere!

I vote for button head Torx in polished 316 or maybe aluminum bronze.
But Nemo needed a welder.

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

I once knew of a Screw-Head who liked to expose himself. The cops locked him up, & took away his trenchcoat.

[Stranger_On_A_Train]

@Valgard

And while they’re redesigning stuff to make the fasteners accessible can they pretty please reduce the number of different sizes used? Working on my truck I sometimes feel like I actually need all the damn different size sockets I’ve got. Tell you what, go ahead and over-design some of the fasteners to reduce the variety. If my F150 had, say, 3 or 4 different sized bolts used for just about everything that would make my life so much easier.

Sure it’d mean some small bits that could be held in place with a tiny screw get a 1/4" bolt. Sure the truck would cost an extra few bucks (but think of the tooling they’d save). I’d be happier for it.

Volkswagon, Honda, and Subaru all do this (I think most of the Japanese makes are actually designed around a few common fastener sizes). You could actually tear down the entire engine and much of the powertrain with little more than the few wrenches and screwdrivers in the provided toolkit of a Volkswagon Type 1-4 or a Subaru EA-engined vehicles.

Stranger

[Don_t_fight_the_hypothetical]

Designer here.

A large majority of people will never change their own oil much less pull their own dashboard. Designers are employed to make things salable. The mantra is usually, ‘No Exposed Fasteners’.

[Rocketeer]

@Valgard

And while they’re redesigning stuff to make the fasteners accessible can they pretty please reduce the number of different sizes used? Working on my truck I sometimes feel like I actually need all the damn different size sockets I’ve got. Tell you what, go ahead and over-design some of the fasteners to reduce the variety. If my F150 had, say, 3 or 4 different sized bolts used for just about everything that would make my life so much easier.

Sure it’d mean some small bits that could be held in place with a tiny screw get a 1/4" bolt. Sure the truck would cost an extra few bucks (but think of the tooling they’d save). I’d be happier for it.

My 1960 Chevy, wretched car though it was in many respects, at least got this right. I think you could have taken the whole damned car down to individual components with a Phillips screwdriver and 1/2 and 9/16 inch end wrenches.

A good counterexample was my old Dodge Omni, which was a great car, except that the body was English standard fasteners and the engine was metric. Sigh. :rolleyes: