Lefty loosey righty tighty

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Mr Celine

Mr Celine

Discordian
Location
Waxing my moustache
Dogtrousers said:
There's nothing inherently "righty" about clockwise, which is "tighty". If you have a spanner in the 12 o'clock position, sure, if you push the free end right it turns clockwise. But if it's at 3 you push it down, at 6 you push it left, at 9 you push it up. So it could be right, left, up or down.
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Use a ratchet then. Just make sure you start at 12 o'clock and don't go past 3 before winding the ratchet back. :thumbsup:
 
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sungod

sungod

Senior Member
most people are right-handed, and the 'natural' way to turn a screwdriver held in the right hand is clockwise, it works better anatomically when driving a screw in

hence the association of right with clockwise

my guess would be that the mnemonic arose as a simple way to help people without appropriate education/experience remember which way to turn a screw - removal of a tight screw relies on knowing which way to go, relying on trial and error is risky, "oh, it snapped"
 
E

ebikeerwidnes

Guru
Location
Z’ha’dum
The way t oundo it is ingrained in a lot of people

I used to live nextdoor to an engineer that worked for the local road department in North Wales

They had a problem with the emergency equipment bins along the A55
Teh idea was that emergency equipment - including road salt - was stored in bins along the road

but it kept getting stolen so when they needed it it wasn;t there

they wanted to lock it
but people needed to be able to open it if called out direct from home
the solution they came up with was a nut the same size as most wheel nuts - so any wheel brace from a car would open it

but they gave it a left hand thread

the theft stopped - a lot of them were VERY tight but the stuff was still inside
 
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