Patent ID: 8161616

Claim:
A method of manufacturing a captive panel fastener comprising the steps of: providing a plastic-capped screw having a screw head, a shank and a cylindrical plastic skirt of the cap extending downwardly beyond a base of the screw head, said skirt having a circular opening at the bottom; placing a compression spring around the shank of said screw; inserting said capped screw into a throughbore of a ferrule having a radially extending flange at a top end and panel attachment means at a bottom end thereof; pressing the base of said screw head against a top surface of said ferrule where said skirt extends downwardly below said ferrule flange; and applying heat and pressure radially inwardly around a periphery of said plastic skirt along a bottom edge thereof such that said bottom edge is permanently deformed to a point where the opening at the bottom of said skirt is reduced to a radiused ring of lesser diameter than the outer diameter of said ferrule flange thereby axially captivating said screw to said ferrule between retracted and extended positions of the screw.