The world has a lot of different standards for a lot of things, but I have never heard of a place with the default screw thread direction being opposite.
So does each language have a fun mnemonic?
Photo credit: https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Giy8OrYJTjw/Tfm9Ne5o5hI/AAAAAAAAAB4/c7uBLwjkl9c/s1600/scan0002.jpg
I just have it in muscle memory to know which way soda bottle cap tightens
DROL: Dicht Rechts, Open Links.
I think I just prefer Links Los, which implies that the other way tightens.
Dutch, BTW.
Gas valves famously use the opposite direction
I can’t think of an equivalent phrase in Bulgarian for that, but it’s known that [most] threads tighten when turning clockwise… and if you don’t know what direction the clock goes, what are you even doing with screws or bolts…
And again there are special cases even outside of threads - for example in plumbing there are some valves that are open when the handle is parallel to the pipe and closed when the handle is perpendicular - and it might just happen that the closing motion happens counterclockwise.
reverse threads are also found on things like bicycles and cars which have parts that spin counter clockwise
Yep, I’m familiar with those - on almost any bycicle the left pedal would tighten to the crank counterclockwise.
Except for the stupid friggin discount stationary bike my wife bought. That must be the exception you’re referring to…
That’s why it’s discounted…
“Eins og kókflaska” or “Same as a Coca Cola bottle”, not universal in Iceland though
Uuuh, upwards? :D
Just like the screws ;D
The German version as actually survived its original time frame: “So lang das Deutsche Reich besteht, wird Schraube fest nach rechts gedreht” - “As long as the German Reich exists, a screw is tightened by turning right”
So … shouldn’t German screws now turn to the left?
Nar. A statement and its converse are not equivalent.
See!!! This is why communism is bad!! Since you’ve started turning everything to the left, it’s all come apart!!
Never heard of this. We say ‘auf links, rechts zu’ and simply order the words alphabetically
yeah, this one is only for inside voice. I won’t be teaching it to anyone anymore.
I’m German, and I’ve never heard that before. I’d be seriously weirded out by someone saying that or teaching it to their kids
I have to admit that this is rather old. So old, in fact, that it does not refer to the Third Reich but the Kaiserreich.
I don’t think anyone thought it was about the third reich
Probably someone did. Not all English-speakers know about the first two, even though they’re implied by “third”.
Yup this was me. I knew it was the third, but it never occurred to me to ask what the other 2 were
TBH I knew about the Kaiserreich, but I had to look up the first one myself. It was the Holy Roman Empire. (Which wasn’t really much of a reich, but the Nazis weren’t noted for their attention to historical accuracy)
That’s better but not that by much. A few years ago Germany raided some very rich and very well-armed wackos who wanted to bring back the Kaiserreich.
I like this one more.
A nice thought until you run into a left handed thread…
Or when you’re screwing in a screw from behind/under something while lying upside down using a ratchet with an angled extender and you aren’t sure which way is actually left/right where the screw is.
Got that tee shirt too!
And you feel so incredibly dense every time you run into it and you can’t figure out what’s going on. The crank on my kids bike was out of whack the other week and I kept tightening it down and it kept coming back loose. I was turning the crank one way to tighten it which was pushing it against the lock nut but it needed to turn the other way to be pushed against the bearing before I tighten the lock nut down. If it was all right-handed it would have been clear what I was doing.
Spindles and shafting are places you can find left handed threads. And it depends on the direction of rotation like that bike crank. Can’t have things coming lose due to the way bike cranks turn, so they a left handed thread to stay tight.
It took me a long to time learn that when dealing with such things that I need to stop, look, and think about how things are assembled and why.
… and you hope you don’t forget until the next time you have to do it…
It’s works most of them time unless you’re in a specialty trade making spindle, gears, and such that must be threaded backwards to avoid the wheel undoing itself.
Or you work with gas cylinders.
I don’t understand this one, please Airgas
I heard from a gas guy that this is to ensure that only connectors made for gas usage are used and people don’t build crazy contraptions with plumber gear for flammable gases… Kinda makes sense.
Reverse threads on gas cylinders are (as far as I know) only used for flammables.
I was sure there was a reason, I just never worked in the field long enough to learn or ask why
Thanks 🫡
They’re made that way so you don’t accidentally connect a gas cylinder to a water line.
Fucking facists keeping me from tap en flambé; like they know what is safe.
I’m Norwegian. I never learned a rule in my language and always just went by instinct. Until ~3rd year of university in physics where someone told me tha the right-hand-rule applies to screws. Now I use that everywhere for screws in strange positions.
I’m indian and learns right hand screw rule in high school physics
Can you elaborate? I googled the right hand rule, but I’m not seeing how it applies to screws.
Grab around a screw with your right hand and extend your thumb (like a thumbs up). Then rotating the screw in the direction which your fingers are pointing will result in the screw moving in the direction your thumb is pointing.
Thumbs up for lifting the screw upwards, thumbs down for screwing the screw downwards. And you can move your hand around to figure out screwing directions for any tricky spots.
Beware the left handed screws, they’re around but rare. My last encounter was inside a vacuum cleaner motor assembly.
Propane and propane accessories also use left-handed threading. It can be really weird to get used to after a lifetime of righty tighty.
Great explanation, thanks
Well, this was a life-changing comment.
“La derecha oprime y la izquierda libera”
The right oppresses, the left liberates
Never heard of that. When attending a trade school there was never the necessity of a mnemotechnic to know in which direction turn the tool.
As other mentioned this kind of phrase is useless if you are in the opposite side.
What I always heard is “la regla del destornillador” (the screwdriver rule), as a substitute for the right hand rule.
I love Spanish, damn that’s a good way to say it.
La derecha oprime y la izquierda libera
I just knew that would be Spanish, without being able to speak more than a few words. It works far better than our effort and is both a sardonic and satirical political comment.
Well played Spanish if that really is the equivalent in common usage. Our effort sounds like it was invented by a young child whilst responding to a BBC quiz.
I’ve never heard this, But it’s great
Gas pipes. All gas fittings are reversed threaded. So it is virtually impossible to connect one to the other.
You know this has always confused the fuck out of me. You are going around a circle, how is there left and right? There is up-and-left, down-and-left, either way is left. If I am starting on the right of the circle (assuming I’m looking at it) which way is right? Up or down?
Use right hand thumb rule. There is no right, there is no left, there is no clockwise or anticlockwise. All of them depend on the way you looks. Rught hand thumb rule fixes it for humans
This has always annoyed me too. I know why it works, but it’s clockwise and counter-(or anti-)clockwise. If you were turning from the bottom, left and right are mixed up. Maybe it’s just too hard to come up with a phrase using those terms?
Clockwise=lockwise
The starting point is on the top.
Imagine it like a car steering wheel.
You’d say turning the wheel to the right turns the car right.
Think of it like this. Like your hand is holding on the top of the steering wheel.
ok but what is behind this picture? I see fur and old matted flesh? a paw with no nails or an old dogs snout?!?!
It’s better to not ask questions sometimes.
backs away slowly
If it was a wheel, which way would it roll if you turned it like that?
It’s the top part. So if you imagine a little dot at the top (12h) position it would move to the right/clockwise or left/anti-clockwise
Yeah, but once you get one quarter of a rotation through your dot is now moving left.
But the top is still moving right
I always think about the direction that the top of the circle turns to apply left or right rotation, though I usually use muscle memory.
Clockwise = Righty
Or imagine a bottle cap instead of a screw… Muscle memory kicks in.
Thank you! Clockwise looking down at a bottlecap makes sense!
Finnish doesn’t have one. We just learn it by instinct and use the time saved to warm up the sauna.
“warm up the sauna”
I get slapped when I try that sort of thing on with Sauna.
Or we pretend to be opening a Koskenkorva bottle in whatever orientation the bolt is in.
with proper application of sisu, it will open in both directions
Same for Denmark. Except instead of warming up the sauna, it creates time for another Tuborg.
I think it’s fairly parochial, and sounds quite infantile to me. Growing up (uk) we just used clockwise to tighten.
Have a chat with some plumbers, builders, chippies, sparkys or engineers - assuming you are not one already. I think “leftie loosey …” is well known in the UK.
It doesn’t even bloody work, lefty tighty righty loosy is every bit as valid if the spanner is at the bottom.
Apple: User - you are holding it wrong!
The spanner is always at 12 o’clock. Either turn yourself or the spanner or your point of view to make it so and then the rule holds. The last option require imagination.
Take the piss after you have tried to thread a nut on a bolt that you cannot see and tightening it is towards you, at an angle. The nut has to cross a hack sawed thread and will try to cross thread 75% of the time unless the moon is in Venus.
You can cover right/left with “right is the hand you write with, and left is the one that’s left” and be good for 80%-95% of the population.
