| Category | CARRIAGE BOLT |
A Carriage Bolts is a form of threaded fastener with an external male thread. Carriage Bolts are closely related to screws. People misunderstand the difference between Carriage Bolts and screws. Carriage Bolts are often used to make a Bolted joint. This is a combination of the nut applying an axial clamping force and also the shank of the Carriage Bolts acting as a dowel, pinning the joint against sideways shear forces. For this reason, many Carriage Bolts have a plain unthreaded shank (called the grip length) as this makes for a better, stronger dowel. The presence of the unthreaded shank has often been given as characteristic of Carriage Bolts vs. screws, but this is incidental to its use, rather than defining.
