Practical Electronics: Components and Techniques

Chapter 2. Fasteners and Adhesives

Creating something new often entails attaching something to something else, and modifying something to adapt it to another purpose can entail attaching things where nothing was attached before. Then there’s the issue of making sure things will stay attached. Fasteners and fastening techniques are key to creating reliable attachments, or building a solid, reliable chassis and enclosure for a circuit or electro-mechanical device. As a prelude to the upcoming chapters on tools and their uses, this chapter presents some of the more common hardware and adhesives used to fasten two or more things together. In Chapter 16, we’ll look at enclosures and other packaging topics and see how fasteners and adhesives are used.

Fasteners come in a range of types and sizes. Some, such as screws and bolts, are familiar to just about everyone. Other types, such as rivets, are not as common but are widely used in a variety of applications. Still other types are designed for specialized applications. But regardless of the type or size, all fasteners are intended to do just what their name implies: fasten something to something else.

Although you might first think of nuts, bolts, and screws, a fastener isn’t always a metallic part. Some reusable snap-on plastic fasteners are available for use with cardboard materials and are excellent for building disposable toys and play sets for children (among other applications), and screws and bolts are available in various nonmetallic ...