Awesome Bolts

The latest brain teaser from Puzzle Master asks you to unscrew its seven machined metal bolts, then reassemble them so they fit back into its hexagonal tray. It looks deceptively simple, but it’s rated a Level 8 on a scale from 5 to 10. Created by famed puzzle designer Oskar van Deventer. Be sure to check out Puzzle Master’s other metal puzzles.

One of the coolest weapons that ninjas carry is the throwing star – also known as a shuriken. Maker B offers a satisfying machining video showing how he transformed a large industrial bolt into a pocket-sized shuriken with points that deploy with the push of a button. He made its body from the bolt head and its retractable points from slices of its threaded shaft.

There’s just something about molten hot metal that gets us excited. In this video from Mega Process, they take us inside of a facility in Korea that produces huge metal bolts for industrial use. They start with long rods of steel which they cut down to bolt length, heat and shape the heads, then machine the screw threads.

The head of an old bolt doesn’t seem like it would make a very nice piece of jewelry. But in the capable hands of artist Anif G, this ordinary piece of brass hardware is transformed into an impressive knight-themed pendant with a hinged door and storage compartment for a photo or pills.

In this experiment from the Hydraulic Press Channel, they wanted to test how the thickness and number of threads on nuts affects their strength. So they placed different nuts on the same kind of bolt, then pressed down to measure the force required to move and bend each one.

The threads on steel bolts are designed for strength and to resist stripping. But they’re no match for a 150-ton hydraulic press. Place your bets now and guess how many kilograms of force different kinds of bolts can survive. While most of them compress, the biggest one explodes when it fails.

Robinson Foundry shows how he made a double-threaded bolt using the lost PLA method he used to make that awesome bronze skull. The process involves dipping 3D-printed models in ceramic, firing then, then melting away the plastic with metal. The design was inspired by a bi-directional bolt machined by Oleg Pevtsov.