CMU School of Drama


Sunday, March 04, 2012

Are Contact-Less Screws The Future?


Tool-Rank.com: There are all kinds of fasteners available that can solve just about every fastening need. We have screws and nails, and when we don't want to see the fastener, we have glue and a lot of clamps. But if the Invis Mx from Lamello is any indication of what is to come, contact-less screws just might be the future. Yeah, I am talking about a screw that never touches the screwdriver.

5 comments:

caschwartz said...

Ok, putting aside the fact that my first thought after seeing this was 'Sonic Screwdriver'!, this is REALLY AWESOME. I distinctly remember reading several sci-fi novels, or books otherwise involving higher technology, where the fasteners were magnetic rather than our normal contact screws. It will be really interesting to see if this catches on.

Luke Foco said...

This technology will be very useful in props and furniture work. This is a great solution to an old problem. My question is how strong of a magnetic force is used to turn these screws and will there be accidental unscrewing of these fasteners by magnetic fields created by items on the furniture using them? This is very cool technology but it would be great to see the price come down on the studs themselves.

Daniel L said...

Like Luke I think that it will be a long time until these change from novelty to practical, particularly given the difficulty associated with undoing them. These are not viable for intricate work that includes several fasteners close together that need to be tightened separately. Also, these will need to come in many shapes and sizes, and so the whole concept becomes ridiculously expensive for the present. I also wonder how often the scene and prop shops here would revert to something like this, when it seems that we are fine with solutions that we have.

Wyatt said...

So this is really cool but I am a bit skeptical. How strong are the joints and can they become undone from magnetic fields or vibration or just use? With my skepticism aside, if you could some how up-size these connections to the point of being able to hold a rated load, I would be really interested. They could make loading and striking a traveling show much easier.

AJ C. said...

This is definitely a fine furniture and prop solution. I do wonder how strong the joints are, and how we will be able to easily find and remove all the the screws. The concept is quite fascinating and hopefully it will progress to make a stronger, more durable, hidden fastener. The progress that can be made to this seems like it could slowly become more viable and less expensive in the future. I see IKEA loving this, what they should really do is team up and go big! You buy furniture, but oh wait, you need this special tool.