[Brian Duff]

Brion took my fun away, as I agree with him completely on this subject.

Thanks Brion !

I will only add that the thickness of a nut has a lot to do with trying to keep the outer diameter of the nut from getting to large. With more material around the fastener you can have a thinner surface and achieve the same holding power. What happens is that as a screw is loaded in tension, the slope of the threads trys to force the nut (or mast wall, or whatever) outward from the screw, so a nut (or mast wall) needs to be large diameter or thick, to get its holding power.