Captive Screws.

What are Captive Screws?

A captive screw is a type of screw that stays attached to the part it's holding together even when you unscrew it. Imagine you have a machine with a cover that you need to remove for maintenance.  A captive screw helps keep the cover in place, and when you unscrew it to open the cover, the screw doesn’t fall out and potentially get lost. It’s attached to the cover, so you won’t lose it and can easily screw it back in after maintaining the machine. This is really useful on a production line and minimizes the risk of small screws being lost and causing hazards within the machinery or the product itself.

The main characteristic of a Captive Screw is its ability to permanently hold a Specialized Captive Washer 'captive' on its unthreaded portion. Accu specialises in the design, manufacture, and support of high-precision machined captive fasteners. A Captive Washer acts as a retainer, locking these components in place. Captive fasteners provide a secure joining and avoid the loss or damage of the fastener within an assembly by not allowing the screw to be fully detached.

These components can be used to fasten sheet metal or captive panels, which are commonly retained for safety reasons. The sheet metal or panel is held in place between the head of the Screw and a Captive Washer, which prevents it from being fully removed.

With over 50,000 standard parts available to order through our secure shop, our online range is the largest in Europe. In addition to our standard component ranges, we are also able to offer custom manufacturing facilities for specialist components. Many of Accu’s Captive Screws are available to buy online. Our captive fastener manufacturing process can be applied to most fasteners. If you require something that isn’t listed online, please contact our team for more details on our design and custom manufacturing services.

For more information on our Captive Screw range, please see our What is a Captive Screw? page.

Bespoke Design Captive Fasteners

All Captive Screws supplied by Accu have been engineered, designed and inspected by our team to provide a reliable and secure hold (captivation) within a target assembly, housing, or machine. Our experienced in-house engineers can assist you in finding the ideal captive fastener solution for your application and assist with custom captive screw inquiries.

Metric Captive Screws

Our Metric Captive Screws range includes metric thread sizes from M1.4 to M20 as standard. Total lengths ranging from 6mm up to 300mm are also available.

Imperial Captive Screws

Accu offers a large selection of imperial sizes in our Captive Fastener range. Diameters range from No. 0 up to 7/8 inch, and imperial Captive Screws are available up to 12 inches.

High-Quality Captive Screw Machining

Our Captive Screws are manufactured in accordance with industry standards to extremely high levels of precision. Our quality-controlled machining process allows us to achieve very high tolerances on our captive modifications and manufacturing processes. These qualities make our Captive Screws ideal for high-accuracy applications.

Captive Screw Material Options

Components within Accu’s standard Stainless Steel Captive Screw range can also be manufactured from a range of specialist materials. 18-8 / 304 Stainless Steel offers excellent corrosion resistance, and A4 (Marine Grade) Stainless Steel is specialized for prolonged exposure to water and use in aquatic environments. Features such as Chemical Blackening and Thread Locking Patches are also available on Stainless Steel screws. For non-metal Captive Screws, materials such as PEEK (engineering thermoplastic) are available. Please contact our team to enquire about other materials, such as Aluminum and Brass.

EU Machine Safety Directive Compliant

All of our Captive Screws are designed to aid compliance with the EU machine safety directive 2006/42/EC which dictates the use of captive fasteners on protective guards from 29/12/2009.

Custom Manufactured Captive Screws

Accu are able to manufacture Captive Screws to exact customer specifications on request. The MADEbyACCU service allows exact specifications to be submitted to our design/quote team. In a large number of cases, custom captive dimensions can be machined at little or no extra cost. This is a great way to ensure complete peace of mind when incorporating our Captive Screws into your assembly. Contact us or submit your drawing to MADEbyACCU to receive a quotation.

Bespoke Captive Screws Manufacture.

High precision, bespoke manufacture of Captive Screws to customer specification. State of the art facilities specialising in both small batch prototyping and large scale manufacture.