Saturday, November 16, 2013

What To Do With Copper Screws

By Bonnie Contreras


Not everybody is aware of this, but copper screws are little motors called actuators. An actuator is a motor that moves something. In this case, a screw is acting as a linear actuator. Linear actuators convert cyclical motion into linear, or straight movement. By comparison, a conventional gasoline-powered or electrical motor produces circular motion.

The shaft of a screw has a single helical ridge, called a thread, wrapped around the cylinder. These threads cut a helical groove when driven into a softer material. Some screws are designed to fit inside a complementary helix, the internal thread, such as in a nut. Screws are commonly used to hold things together and to fix them into position.

One use for a copper linear actuator is as a contact screw in a tattoo machine. This is another little-known fact. They are easily made in a home workshop because the metal is quite soft. The only tools you need are a die with the desired internal thread, a set of pliers, fine sandpaper (available from hobby shops) and a small amount of gun bluing solution. When used on iron or steel, the bluing agent confers a small element of protection against corrosion or rust. In this case, it just makes the tattoo screw look pretty.

The soft, malleable reddish metal, roughly the same the color as an Irish Setter, has an atomic number of 29 and the chemical symbol, Cu. It readily conducts both heat and electricity. For this reason, it is used for the bottoms of sauce pans and frying pans and as the main constituent of electrical wiring. It is highly ductile, which makes it easy to shape in to whatever you want to make it.

During the Roman era, Cu was mined in Cyprus. This is where it got its original name of cyprium, eventually shortened to cuprum, which is how it ended up with the chemical symbol Cu. It is a trace element in the human body, where it forms part of cytochrome, an important enzyme. Also, whereas humans use the red, iron-containing hemoglobin to carry oxygen to the body and return carbon dioxide out to the lungs, crustaceans and molluscs use a the cupric compound, hemocyanin, which has a blue color.

In people, cuprum is mainly located in the liver, muscles and in bone. Because of its bacteriocidal (germ-killing) action, it is used as a wood preservative and as a fungicide. It is also used as a lining for laboratory incubators that are used for cell and tissue culture.

What else can be done with a copper screw except as a bacteriocide or in a tattoo machine. They are useful for screwing into wood, particularly if it is exposed to corroding elements. This is because the pretty, reddish metal is less prone to rusting than steel or iron. As a substitute for cuprum, zinc, nickel, cadmium or brass may be used.

So, copper screws are interesting little motorific devices. The native metal kills germs and looks pretty. They are rather soft, so you need to be careful where you use them. You would not want to use them to hold a commercial airliner together, for instance.




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