Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2002 11:31:06 +0100
From: The Englishman 
To: hawkgt-l@LISTSERV.HAWKGT.COM
Subject: NHC: In defence of Whitworth!

Mike hastily scribbled
> The Euro is metric for our more traditional SAE
> "dollar." Of course the English use something
> completely different--ever hear of Whitworth?

Ok, thats one dig too many at Whitworth! ;) Seems you lot dont understand
the Whitworth system. Well pay attention. Mr Jackson is going to be your
educator. First lets put the problem into context.
Whitworth, BSF, BA, BSP, BSC, UNC, UNF...all terms often accused of striking
terror and loathing into the hearts of anyone who's ever been involved in
the repair or restoration of any old British machine, whether it be an
aeroplane, motorcycle, car or washing machine. OK, maybe forget the washing
machine. But hang on, instead of gnashing our teeth and pulling our hair out
in bloody clumps we should fling up our hands in honour of these mysterious
standards as, without them, things would be even more complicated. Why? Well
here's a bit of history...

Back in the mid-19th Century, when the industrial revolution was at full
bore, almost every factory and manufacturer had it's own design of screw
thread and, consequently, fasteners were often made specifically for the job
in hand. This meant that compatibility and interchangeability between
companies was just about non-existant. This is technically known as "A Bad
Thing" or, less technically, as "A Proper Pain in the Arse". Something had
to be done.

Enter Sir Joseph Whitworth, a brilliant engineer, who decided that a
standard was required and, in an attempt to retain the small amount of hair
that he hadn't already torn out by the roots, set about developing one. In
order to do this he got hold of as many existing threaded fasteners as
possible, measured them, averaged them out and in 1841 announced the
"Whitworth" thread form to a grateful nation. Whitworth's new-fangled thread
had a pitch and depth based on the diameter of the bolt - the larger the
bolt, the coarser the thread. Love and praise were heaped upon him, the
Whitworth became the mother-of-all threads and all was well in Great Britain
and the Empire. Later, the British Standards Institute adopted the Whitworth
as their standard threadform and announced that,

"...henceforth, and from this day forward the thread formerly known as
'Whitworth' shall be known as 'British Standard Whitworth' or 'BSW'. God
bless her and all who screw her.".

Actually, I made that last bit up, but anyhow the much improved situation
now became technically known as "A Good Thing". Marvellous!

There was a problem however.  Whitworth is a relatively course thread and
while that's great for holding a steam engine or the Forth Bridge together,
it's less well suited for smaller stuff. So, in 1908, a finer thread was
developed based on the Whitworth form and given the snappy name of British
Standard Fine (BSF).  The BSF retained the 55 degree internal angle of the
Whitworth, but with a finer pitch making it far more suitable for smaller
machinery with less likelihood of it vibrating loose.  In addition, the
British Association (BA) thread, with a 47.5 degree angle, was introduced
for screws smaller than 1/4" in diameter and often used in electrical and
instrumentation applications.

All this excitement meant that the writing was on the wall for pesky
non-standard threads worldwide and, in 1918, the United States Society of
Automotive Engineers proposed and adopted their own standard threads, with a
60 degree angle, named National Course (NC) and National Fine (NF).

This is great stuff, but add British Standard Pipe (BSP) for self-sealing
pipework and British Standard Cycle (BSC) for bikes and motorcycles plus the
metric threads that had become standard in continental Europe to our
existing list of BSW, BSF, NF and NC, and things are starting to get a bit
hair-raising again.  Some wag once said "the trouble with standards is that
there are too many of them" (think about it...it's irony) and these wise
words were proven during World War II when thousands of lend-lease tanks,
jeeps and dodgy chocolate bars arrived in dear old Blighty with incompatible
American nuts and bolts.   As a result, and once the distraction of the war
was dealt with, Britain, the US and Canada got their heads together and
decided to standardise with a unified thread form.   This was based on the
National Fine and National Course standards which were imaginatively renamed
Unified National Fine (UNF) and Unified National Course (UNC).

The changeover was quite gradual though, lasting well into the 1960's, so
it's not uncommon to have a mixture of the older British threads and these
new, jumped-up unified jobs on the same aeroplane.  Instruments are a good
example, although they are usually marked with a OOO symbol indicating when
they are fitted with UNF/UNC threads.

Even this supposedly 'unified' situation became problematical in Britain,
with our nearest geographical neighbours all using metric threads, so in
1965 the British Standards Institute decreed that the ISO metric system
should also become standard in the UK.  Interestingly, BA threads were
retained for instrumentation and electrical applications with "preference
given to the even sizes" i.e. 2BA, 4BA etc.. BSP was also incorporated into
the metric standard as the thread of choice for pipes and pipe fittings.

OK, so which #@$% spanner do I use?

Ah, now we're edging back into "A Pain in the Arse" territory as, for the
inexperienced, spanner sizes for the old BSW, BSF, BA etc. fasteners seem to
have been picked out of the ether with no apparent relationship to the size
of the nut sitting in front of you.

Metric and Unified sizes are easy - just measure the distance across the
flats of the nut (in millimetres for metric, fractions of an inch for
Unified) and that's your spanner size, i.e. the distance between the jaws.
"Unified" spanners are generally marked as AF which simply means "Across
Flats".

BSW and BSF spanner sizes are based on the diameter of the threaded section
of the bolt and not the dimension across the flats of the head.   Because of
this method of sizing, there are instances where different sizes of bolt,
from different thread types, have the same size head and therefore fit the
same spanner.  For example a 3/16 BSW bolt has the same head size as a 1/4
BSF.  In this case the distance across the flats is (more or less) 7/16" and
so a 7/16 AF spanner will fit all three!  By the way, how BA sizes were
arrived at is a mystery on a par with the Bermuda Triangle or the Marie
Celeste.  It's completely beyond the wit of man to explain so you'll just
have to accept it in the same way that you accept your fridge light really
does go off when you shut the door.

Unfortunately, instances of the same spanner fitting a number of different
heads are few and far between (this whole business is merciless I tell you,
merciless) and in reality there is no easy way to cross-reference one to
another.  Luckily, most older British cockpits use a fairly small number of
different sizes, e.g. 2BA for fixing small panels, junction boxes, brackets
etc., 4BA for holding instruments in their panels and the smaller Whitworth
sizes for larger fittings.

So, now for some numbers.  The following table shows the outside diameter,
in millimeters, of some of the more commonly found sizes, i.e. the diameter
of the hole (add on a bit for clearance) that the bolt would pass through;

Whitworth and BSF
3/16" 4.763 mm
1/4" 6.35 mm
5/16" 7.938 mm
3/8" 9.525 mm
BA
6BA 2.8 mm
4BA 3.6 mm
2BA 4.7 mm
0BA 6 mm

This table shows the measurements across the flats, again in millimeters,
for a variety of bolt hex heads, i.e. the distance between the jaws of the
spanner that fits it;

Whitworth BSF
1/8W 8.7 3/16BSF 8.7
3/16W 11.4 1/4BSF 11.4
1/4W 13.5 5/16BSF 13.5
5/16W 15.3 3/8BSF 15.3
3/8W 18.1 7/16BSF 18.1
7/16W 21.0 1/2BSF 21.0
BA UNC/UNF (AF)
6BA 4.9 1/4 5.5
4BA 6.3 5/16 8.0
2BA 8.3 3/8 9.6
0BA 10.5 7/16 11.2
Metric
M5 8
M6 10
M8 13
M10 17
M12 19

That lot may well have put you to sleep and there is no shame in that, it IS
extremely boring and I can only apologise for burdening you with it.
However, it does tell us a couple of things;

1. There are just about no common spanner sizes between different standards.
  The exception being Whitworth and BSF, but they damn well ought to work
together because, if you've been paying attention, you'll recall that BSF
was developed from Whitworth as a finer pitched alternative.

2. Some spanner sizes from different standards are just close enough that
they can, if the nut/bolt head is in good enough condition, be used if the
correct size is not available.  Don't get too excited though for goodness
sake, there are precious few that fall into that category with
2BA-1/8W-3/16BSF and 3/16W-1/4BSF-7/16AF being the only immediately obvious
ones.

So that's it then?

Well, there you have it.  Threads and spanners are a nightmare.  It's
official.  You could spend a fortune, buy a set of spanners for every
standard then invite your friends around to admire them.  Alternatively you
could do what I suspect many people do...stuff the theory, just use whatever
seems to fit!

I hope that throws some light on the subject for you all.

Cheers

Dave
Shameless plageriser of other peoples research.


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