10 december 2020

SO HOW DID WE GET TO HERE ?

LIKE

THESE

WISH I’D WRITTEN THESE

CONTACT

WRITTEN

THESE

BUT

SERIOUSLY -

ARTICLES

etc.

           All original writing

AND THESE

2014, 2015, 2016,

2017, 2018, 2019,

2020, 2021, 2022,

2023, 2024

Dr Ian McLauchlin

STORM, STEEL AND WOOD

There'd been a storm. Some damage had occurred to wooden canopies and joints had been blown apart. A neighbour knew what to do. He went out and bought some long bolts. Quite a few bolts. Many many bolts in fact.

He drilled the wooden joint and put in a bolt. He tightened it then stood back to admire his handiwork.

Not satisfied, he drilled another hole and inserted a second bolt, and tightened it. Maybe another one just to be sure. "That won't come apart again."

By the time he'd finished there were many bolts in place but they were holding not a lot of wood. I was pleased he stopped when he did. Another few bolts and the joints would have had so many bolts in them that there wouldn't have been any wood left for the bolts to hold together!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, demonstrates the thinking of a non-engineer. And also shows that people haven't much idea about the strength of a steel bolt compared to that of a piece of wood. Steel can be over 200 times as strong as wood so you don't need much steel to hold wood together. And you need to be careful that you aren't adding more steel strength than the strength of the wood itself. That would be unnecessary and wasteful, and in the end would actually WEAKEN the joint..