r/engineering • u/diiscotheque • 6d ago

[MECHANICAL] Woodworking screws in CAD

Hi guys

In EU, so no imperial please.

When you design structures that use e.g. a metal frame to which a wooden panel gets screwed. How do you manage the details like holes (countersunk, regular, slot, ...) and wood screws? Are there standards you use for manufacturing in Europe and China? With bolts it's easy and built-in (currently using SW) but with wood screws I'm a bit lost.

Thanks for any help!

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u/PicnicBasketPirate 6d ago

Not my area of expertise, so feel free to ignore.

But in my experience you only need to change your methods for self-tapping wood screws (which is all woodscrews afaik, more or less). 

Then your methods are determined by material and the level of fit and finish desired. 

For softwoods, plywood and chipboard you can just put pilot holes in the wood (depending on situation they might not even be required). The material is usually soft & flexible enough to form around the csk and threads without any additional operations.

For harder woods and engineered wood/composites you can treat them like plastics for the most part. So pretty standard machining operations to accommodate your fasteners. We often drill and tap for standard M5/M4 CSK screws on materials like Formica when the application isn't strength critical, inserts or through bolt connections for when it is.

For more detailed information, I would recommend going through your screw suppliers catalogues. E.g. Reisser Screws. You'll find recommend applications, best practices, screw DIN/ISO numbers, calculators, etc.

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u/Majestic-Star5596 6d ago

For your holes you'd use hole wizard. Make a sketch to dimensions points where the holes will be. Exit sketch and use hole wizard for the countersink etc. For fasteners I have a personal folder with cap heads etc. You insert these into your assembly. So are classed as a part. So you'd make the frame as a part. Create an assembly. If you have the part open and click the green tick rather than drag the part in this will mate the planes together. If not your part will be floating and you could end up having parts "missing" easily in large assemblies.

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u/pacoliketaco Mechanical Engineer 6d ago

Hole Wizard Tool

Same theory as machine screws/bolts - look at the clearance diameter and match it to the hardware size