When you are managing a job site or an inventory of fastener, you may need to know the exact number of screw you have in a container. You can count screws one by one, but counting screws one by one is a slow process that take alot of time. You can also use a scale to weighing the screws, and using a scale to weigh the screws is a much fasterer process than counting screws one by one.
Weighing screws is an efficient method for counting screws because weighing screws allow you to determine the quantity of screws based on the total weight of the screws. Understanding the relationship between the physical dimensions of a screw and the weight of a screw is necessary for accurate inventory management. A single screw has a very small mass, but many screws together will create a large total mass.
How to Count Screws by Weight
You must understand how the diameter of a screw and the length of a screw affects the mass of a screw. If you increase the diameter of a screw or if you increase the length of a screw, the mass of the screw will increase. Because the mass of each screw increase, the total weight of a box of screws will also increase.
If you dont account for the diameter and the length of the screws, your weight based counts will be inaccurate. The type of screw head also change the weight of the screws. A pan head screw has a standard amount of mass, but a hex washer head screw has more mass because a hex washer head screw includes an integrated washer.
Because a hex washer head screw has more mass than a pan head screw, a box of hex washer head screws will be heavier than a box of pan head screws that contains the same number of screw. Additionally, a hex head screw with an EPDM rubber washer will be even heavier than a standard hex washer head screw because the EPDM rubber washer adds extra material to the screw. Therefore, different screw heads will result in different total weight for the same number of screws.
The material used to make the screw also affect the weight of the screws, but some materials affects the weight more than other materials. Zinc-plated steel screws and stainless steel screws have very similar weight, so you can treat zinc plated steel screws and stainless steel screws as if they has the same weight. However, hot-dip galvanized screws are heavier than zinc-plated steel screws because the hot-dip galvanization process add a thick coating of zinc to the screws.
If you are counting hot-dip galvanized screws by weight, you must account for the extra mass cause by the zinc coating, or your count will be incorrect. The shape of the tip of the screw is another factor that change the weight of the screws. A Type A point screw is a light option because a Type A point screw has less metal at the tip.
A Tek drill point screw is heavier than a Type A point screw because a Tek drill point screw require more metal to create the drill bit shape at the tip. Because a Tek drill point screw has more metal at the tip, a Tek drill point screw has more mass than a Type A point screw. To manage your inventory effective, you should use a scale to weigh your screws and you should label your storage containers with the weight of a single screw.
If you know the weight of a single screw, you can divide the total weight of the container by the weight of a single screw to find the total number of screws. You must also use appropriate container for your screws because heavy screws can break plastic containers. If you use a container that is too light for a heavy box of screws, the container may crack.
If you use the correct containers and you use a scale to weigh your screws, you will maintain an accurate inventory of your screws.
