Shoulder Bolts

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Shoulder Bolts

Socket Drive Bolts with an Extending Shoulder

Shoulder Bolts are machine screws with a shoulder between the thread of the screw and the head of the part. Once installed, the non-threaded shoulder extends out of the surface of the application site, allowing the bolts to act as dowels, shafts for moving parts, axles or guides for sliding pieces of an assembly. They can be installed by hand, or with a socket (Allen) driver. Stainless Steel Shoulder Bolts offer corrosion resistance in fresh water environments.

Understanding Shoulder Bolts | Fasteners 101

Shoulder Bolts Explained
Understanding Shoulder Bolts Transcript

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Bob: Welcome back to Albany County Fasteners - Fasteners 101. I'm Bob and today we're going to talk about shoulder bolts. Let's get started.

So, I have here shoulder bolts. I have here 3/8" socket shoulder bolt which is pretty much the most common shoulder bolt out there. Shoulder bolts are measured by the shoulder. So, if you were to see listed a 5/8" x 2” shoulder bolt, that would be indicating the diameter would be 5/8 of an inch, okay, and the 2-inch would be the length from under the head to the end of the shoulder. That does not include the threaded portion. Shoulder bolts are always measured in that fashion.

The threaded section, either you get this shoulder bolt in two inches, a half-inch, or five inches long, the thread portion will always be the same in length. So, in this scenario here on a 5/8” bolt, it's approximately 3/4 of an inch in length for the thread. When you have a 5/8” shoulder your threaded portion is going to be 1/8” less than the 5/8”. In this case, 1/2”-13. 1/2” being the thread diameter and the 13 being the thread pitch. On the 3/8”, in this scenario, again measured 3/8” x 2” long, the 3/8” threaded portion will be 5/16”-18.

As you can see here, typically, a shoulder bolt, or called stripper bolts, are used to create a pivot point. They use these when you put in bearings on machines, many mechanical applications in which shoulder bolts are used. Typically, you would find them with a socket head that's fairly large, also, the heads are always knurled.

You can use the shoulder bolt with a flat washer along with, if you want to use a lock washer and then you put a finish nut on or you can use a nylon lock nut. So, you wouldn't have to use a lock washer or a regular finish nut. That would be in lieu of the finish nut and lock washer.

You can also purchase shoulder bolts in hex-head. They're available in several other heads There are several different varieties of styles that you can get.

So, I just wanted to demonstrate to you and show you the different shoulder bolts. Thanks for watching. Talk to you in our next video.