Procedural Bolts in geometry nodes - Blender project

Complete procedural bolts asset for your projects using the standard ISO Metric Thread Table and Metric Coarse Thread Series from M2 to M100. Made with geometry nodes in Blender v. 4.1.1.

This product contains the asset file, also used to make the video tutorial but with also the selectable sizes from M2 to M100.

If you have any doubt about strange artifacts on the final mesh please comment on my youtube channel or join on my discord server (link in all my video tutorial description).

With this workflow you'll be able to manage these parameters:

• Type: Screw or Nut
• Size: With this parameter you can choose from the list of all the ISO Metric Thread standard sizes from M2 and M100 or choose the Custom to set custom values for the pitch, the internal and external cut diameters
• Height: The height of the thread
• Flip direction: If disabled the thread can be screwed with the right hand (clockwise rotation), if enabled with the left hand.
• Inner diameter (6 sides): This parameter forces the system to calculate the right circumference to assign to the head of the screw or to the nut to have the set value between two parallel faces. In this way you can take the final printed product with steel key or pliers properly. It is recommended to enable this check only for 6 faces. More info in the video tutorial.
• Material: It defines the material to assign to the object.
• Nut (note: the internal cut to have less grip with screws is always enabled)
  • Sides: The number of the external faces of the nut (the resolution)
  • Diameter: It defines the external diameter of the nut (not the diameters of the thread inside).
• Screw
  • Cuts & chamfer: Since the boolean operation executed on the geometry can be expensive you can enable this parameter at the end of the setup. It makes the external cutting and the chamfer on the tip of the screw to have less grip between real screws and nuts.
  • Head: With this parameter you can choose to have the head on the screw or maintain only the thread alone.
  • Sides: The number of the external faces of the screw head (the resolution)
  • Diameter: It defines the external diameter of the screw head (not the diameters of the thread)
  • Height: The height of the screw head
• Custom sizes
  • Pitch: This defines the distance between two crests of the thread.
  • Cut min diameter: It defines the minimum diameter already cut for the NUT (not for the screw). From this parameter the system will calculate all the others to get the correct profile tolerances. I remember that for reference, the center of the circle defined by this diameter is on the axis passing through an hypothetical screw (see the reference images).
  • Cut max diameter: It defines the maximum diameter already cut for the SCREW (not for the nut). From this parameter the system will calculate all the others to get the correct profile tolerances. I remember that for reference, the center of the circle defined by this diameter is on the axis passing through the screw itself (see the reference images).
• Animation
  • Offset: It allows you to automatically offset and rotate the piece to maintain the right proportion between offset and rotation.
    Fell free to use it adding keyframes and tweaking the curves animation with the graph editor.
    The offset is always related to the axis passing through the screw or the nut. In this way you can rotate the screw or nut in the object mode and play with this parameter without worries.

Warning! Before printing this pieces with a 3d printer it is highly recommended to print few pieces of the final products for tests, putting them in the right application before massive printing. This is recommended to avoid throwing away unusable material.
You can find useful information about it on the Export to 3d printer section of the video tutorial.

Royalty Free License

This license grants you, the purchaser, the ability to make use of the purchased product for personal, educational, and or commercial purposes as long as those purposes do not violate any of the following:

• You may not resell, redistribute, or repackage the purchased product for free or commercially without explicit permission from the original creator,
• You may not use the purchased product in a logo, watermark, or trademark of any kind with the exception of: shader, material, and texture products are exempt as the product is used in a secondary manner.