I have a hard time remembering which way to turn a screw in order to tighten or loosen it (depending on my particular goals at the time). I am not sure why most folks find the saying, “righty tighty, lefty loosy,” to be such a big help because it depends entirely upon one’s starting point on the circle that is the head of a screw. If you start at the top, you might indeed tighten by turning to the right, but if you start at the bottom, you’ll tighten by turning to the left. Why would you ever start at the bottom, don’t people always start at the top? Well, no. I for one like to get to the bottom of things, so I may just as easily start at the bottom as top. And if using a screw driver to get into tight places, I am MUCH more likely to have the handle pointing out towards me which means, again, starting at the bottom an “turning left” to tighten.
I have a much easier time remembering “clock to lock” to tighten screws. Starting top or bottom clockwise is still clockwise. It came in handy after the August 23rd earthquake we experienced in northern Virginia. I wanted to make sure the pipes were tight (I’d found they’ed worked their way loose once before.)
aLightningbug 