Joining technology

Others

• Barrels (metal staves and hoops)

Polymers

• Glues and adhesives
• Plastic welding

Flexible materials

• Knots
• Sewn boats
• Ropes

Self unions

Some manufactured items are made from a raw material using self unions, that is: unions without using other joining materials.

• Basketry
• Reed mats
• Fabric
• Felt
• Knitted fabrics
• Braided leather
  • For example: in a braided leather whip, all joints are made without any kind of sewing thread or adhesive
• Fishing nets
• Metallic nets

Historical examples

Neolithic

The replacement of cut stone tools by polished stone tools is not the most important innovation, although it is the one that gives the period its name. The diversification of tasks that needed to be done (cutting down trees, sowing seeds, harvesting cereals, much of the grain...) explains that the first farmers had to create new specific tools for each function. Most utensils were made of flint with a wooden handle, others were made of bone and animal horn. They made pottery to store food, fabric for clothing with wool and linen, musical instruments, et cetera.

The mortice and tenon coupling was used to join the planks of the ancient Greek ships with double box and false wick. This set was fixed with a wooden peg on each side. The construction system of the large ships of antiquity (the chaining with a guarantor of the lining plates) was of Phoenician origin. The Romans called it "Phoenician chains" ("coagmenta punicana", in Latin plural).

Bronze Age

iron age

Phoenicians and Carthaginians

The mortice and tenon coupling was used to join the planks of the ancient Greek ships with double box and false wick. This set was fixed with a wooden peg on each side. The construction system of the large ships of antiquity (the chaining with a guarantor of the lining plates) was of Phoenician origin. The Romans called it "Phoenician joints" ("coagmenta punicana", in Latin plural).

Ancient Egypt

The images show three material assemblies representing three mechanical joints and the corresponding joint elements. The first example, a solar boat, recalls the sewn joints of the wooden pieces that make up the boat's hull. In this particular case the joints were reinforced with box and wick fittings. The second example is that of the wheels of a war chariot. The button of a wheel was formed by the union of the six "vertices" of six pieces of wood - each bent at an angle - so that each spoke was formed by the union of two arms of contiguous angular pieces. The third example is based on the funerary mask of Tutankhamun and shows a kind of soft welding for metals.

Ancient Greece

Classical Greek culture offers many examples of ensembles made up of pieces mechanically joined together. The following sets are randomly presented: a hoplite spear, a hoplite shield, a mechanical system for chariot racing, the Antikythera mechanism, and general war machines.

In figure 1 you can see a Greek spear made up of three parts: the tip (of bronze or steel), the shaft (of ash or a similar wood) and the shaft (of bronze or steel). This set involves two unions.

Viking Era

The ships of the Vikings, the drakkars, had (almost all) tingled hulls.

The juxtaposed lath system was the most popular on the Mediterranean coast. Boats, oxen, gussies and ships of great harbor had ships according to this arrangement. The tingled can method (in which each can overlaps the bottom can) was typical of the Atlantic coasts. An example would be the ships of the Vikings, the drakkars. The method of sewing the tins was followed in various parts of the world, with examples in the Nordic countries and on the coasts of the Indian Ocean.

The union of two planks in a drakkar was secured by means of iron rivets (or nails with a dome on the outside and a bent point on the inside). The tightness was obtained with moss or wool impregnated with resin or glue.

Patents

Since about the fifteenth century, joining technologies have been the subject of patents and similar actions. Here follows a small, random sample, arranged chronologically. The listed patents include assembly tools for mounting or tightening fasteners.

• 1891 The Swedish company Bahco attributes an improved design, in 1891 or 1892, to the Swedish inventor Johan Petter Johansson who in 1892 received a patent.
• 1909 Allen screws.
• 1944 Blind rivets
• 1981 Pozidriv screws.