The Department of Industrial and Domestic Fastening is the second department of the Brennholt Institute of Applied Taxonomy, founded as an extension of the Department of Office Fastening, and it covers fasteners of the workshop, the home and the cable run: cable ties, split rings, eyelets, twist ties and the split pin. It differs from its older sibling in one respect: more of its objects are covered by a real standard.
The Department therefore spends more of its pages saying what is already fixed, and less proposing scales of its own.
| Family | Lead page | Standard status |
|---|---|---|
| Cable ties | Cable tie sizes | Product standards exist for some uses; sizes follow trade convention |
| Split pins | Split pin sizes | ISO 1234 |
| Safety pins | Safety pin sizes | Trade numbering |
| Wire | Wire gauge explained | SWG and AWG tables |
Split rings, eyelets and twist ties are scheduled for the Department's later pages and are not yet published.
The Institute observed that the same wire, steel and coating questions arise across the office and the workshop. A split pin and a paperclip are both formed wire; a cable tie and a rubber band are both elastic loops of different material. The Department treats these as one problem seen in two places, and its pages cross-refer for that reason.
The four-step method is unchanged: measure, cite the standard, classify the gap, record dissent. In this Department the second step carries the most weight. A page on a standardised object, such as the split pin, opens with the standard's number and keeps its own contribution short.
Three pages serve both departments and are kept in the Institute's general section:
An office fastener is used by hand and thrown away; an industrial fastener may carry a load and be inspected. This changes what the Institute measures. For a paperclip, holding capacity is a convenience figure. For a cable tie, tensile rating is a specification and is stated by the manufacturer. The Institute reports the manufacturer's figure as the manufacturer's, and its own bench results separately.
The Institute does not publish load figures as an engineering guide. Its measurements are for classification, and it states on each industrial page that a fastener used in a safety-critical application must be selected from the manufacturer's data and the applicable standard. The Institute is a taxonomic body, not a testing laboratory.
Every object in this Department appears in the Institute's register of classified objects, on the register page, with a note on whether a standard exists. The Department adds an object only when it meets the criteria on the admission criteria page.
The Department measures at least 25 objects of each type and publishes millimetres first, inches second. For objects sold by a trade numbering, it reports the number beside the measurement, and notes where two suppliers use the same number for different sizes. Industrial buyers often order by catalogue code, and the Department's pages therefore end with a short note on how to check a delivered item against the dimension it was ordered by, using callipers and nothing else. The reasoning is the same as in the office department: a reader can verify a measurement, and cannot verify an assertion.
The panel is divided on whether the two departments should have been merged. Two members argue that the distinction between office and industrial use is a convention without a physical basis. The majority hold that the difference in standards coverage is real and affects how a page is written. The departments remain separate.