When you think of a deck fastener, what comes to mind? Odds are, it’s probably a screw. While nails are still a staple of the building industry, it’s the screw that’s most commonly now used in deck construction. While screws have been around since the first century B.C., it wasn’t until the late 18th century that screws became commonplace when two English brothers—Job and William Wyatt—patented the first screw-making machine. And when Cullen Whipple created the pointed screw in 1859, he could not have envisioned how his invention would go on to change the face of construction more than a century later.(…)
