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Fastener Manufacturing Equipment – An Overview

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Reprint from Fastener World Magazine, Vol. 164

It was over thirty years ago that I first walked through a fastener manufacturing plant. I was just completing a cooperative education program with General Motors and looking to complete my engineering education with another summer internship. As luck would have it I was invited to interview with a fastener manufacturer near my home.

That first introduction to manufacturing of fasteners would serve to begin a lifelong interest and appreciation for the way that fasteners are made and, more generally, with all manufacturing processes. I was particularly impressed with my first look at how fastener threads are formed. Never in a million years would I have expected that threads could be formed by squeezing and rolling parts between two, grooved flat plates.

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Screw Threads – Different Designs and Where They Are Utilized

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Reprint from Fastener World Magazine, Vol. 163

In recent years a new addition to public school curriculum has taken the US by storm. This addition is known as STEM, which is an acronym for “Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics”. One of the foundational subjects of the STEM curriculum is education about the “Seven Simple Machines”. As a student of technology, each of these simple machines is an interesting subject, but perhaps none of the seven is more elegant than the screw thread.

Since its first inception and surely its first recorded uses, the screw thread has been faithfully serving mankind in many ways. One of the first recorded deployments of the screw thread was when Archimedes used it to move water from one level to another, and today it’s uses for holding things together are almost limitless and span from the very mundane to the very important and critical. In fact, today many in our society are thankful for screws that hold bones and other body parts together, enabling revolutionary remedies to common health and mobility problems.

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A Few Key Concepts When Doing Business with German Companies

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Reprint from Fastener World Magazine, Vol. 162

One needs only to type “cross cultural mistakes” into a search engine to be inundated with example after example of grievous marketing blunders made because of poor language translation or cultural misunderstanding. Consider these recent examples; an Italian ad that translated Schweppes Tonic Water into “Schweppes Toilet Water”, a Chinese ad that translated the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan, “finger-licken’ good”, into “Eat your fingers off”, or the Coors Brewing Company slogan, “Turn it loose”, understood in a Spanish ad campaign as “Suffer from Diarrhea.”

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Heat Treating Automotive Fasteners

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Reprint from Fastener World Magazine, Vol. 175

About twenty years ago I was working with an automotive foundation brake supplier when catastrophe struck. One of this company’s calipers utilized a Collette Style Pin brake caliper design. These calipers operate by sliding along a two piece pin system. There is a Collette Pin with a tapped hole in the head and a Mounting Bolt. The Mounting Bolt connects the face of the Collette Pin to the back side of the Piston Body Flange, providing unfettered access for the caliper bracket to slide along these pins when the brake is functioning.

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Understanding Fastener Strength

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Reprint from Fastener World Magazine, Vol. 174

To understand why fasteners are manufactured to different strength levels, one must first understand how a fastener is intended to work. To work properly, a fastener must possesses some elasticity and stretch as it is tightened. For many this is counterintuitive because, for example, a large 1” diameter steel bolt hardly seems like an item that would stretch. However, stretch it must if it is going to function the way it was intended.

Figure 1 illustrates a demonstration that one can use to understand the behavior of a bolted joint. To conduct this demonstration, one places their thumb, index, and middle fingers together, wraps a wide rubber band twice around, and then opens their fingers against the resistance of the rubber band. In the second part of the demonstration a third wrap of the rubber band goes around the fingers and reopening the fingers is, once again, attempted. Individuals attempting this demonstration should notice that with the third wrap in-place the rubber band is much more highly stretched and it becomes significantly more difficult to open the fingers.

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Automotive Platings and Coatings

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Reprint from Fastener World Magazine, Vol. 172

When I started in the fastener industry thirty years ago, our automotive customers were significantly divided in how they approached the platings and coatings used on fasteners. The spectrum ranged on one end from OEMs that had only a handful of choices to the other end of the spectrum where it seemed there was an option for every engineer that had been convinced by a plating chemical supplier that they had the best mousetrap. In the intervening years this has mostly changed, so that today, even though each automotive OEM still has their own set of standards and preferred finishes, the selection has tightened up considerably so that all the OEMS are now doing relatively similar things.

To understand how we have arrived at the place we are today, one has to understand a number of trends and occurrences that have either helped or forced the industry to go in a particular direction. Most of the rest of this article will focus on these discrete events to assist us in understanding the landscape today.

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“Drilling Down” – The Basics of Drill Screws

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Reprint from Fastener World Magazine, Vol. 171

Fastening thin metal sheets has presented challenges since screws were first used to connect things. If the metal sheet is very thin the connection is challenging because there isn’t enough thickness to provide sufficient thread engagement, and, thus the ability to withstand stripping. On the other hand, as sheet or gauge thickness increases self-piercing is no longer an option and either a pilot hole is required to accommodate a thread forming or cutting screw or a tapped hole must be prepared to accept a machine screw. In many instances, particularly in construction, the time it would take to prepare each joint to accept such designs is prohibitively long. What, therefore, is the solution to this dilemma?

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The Basics of Stainless Steel

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Reprint from Fastener World Magazine, Vol. 160

In 1913 English metallurgist Harry Brearley was working on a project to develop an improved steel for gun barrels that was more erosion resistant than the current steel of the day. He was experimenting with Chromium alloy steels and happened to try one that had 12.8% Chromium and 0.24% Carbon. As often happens, what begins with one goal in mind results in an entirely different outcome. In this case, Mr. Brearley’s erosion resistant experiments would result in a steel far more corrosion resistant than normal steel. Stainless steel was born.

Today stainless steels are a part of everyday life and are used in a wide variety of applications from appliance coverings, pots and pans, marine components, automotive components, and even fasteners. Stainless steels are a logical choice when the primary goal of the designer is corrosion resistance, although other properties such as appearance and strength may be determining factors in a choice to use them. There are over 300 different iron based alloys containing a minimum of 11.5% chromium that comprise those materials considered stainless steels.

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Fasteners and the Environment

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Reprint from Fastener World Magazine, Vol. 159

In recent years both government regulators and self-policing industries have made giant strides in more environmentally conscious activities. Although the fastener industry does not possess the multitude of opportunities for improvement that some industries do, the industry is not completely absent of them either. This article will explore six trends within the fastener industry that are reaping positive results to an ever increasing environmentally conscious society.

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Understanding Aerospace Fastener Descriptions and Markings

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Reprint from Fastener World Magazine, Vol. 153

A great deal of manufactured fasteners are “standards”. This means that they conform to a set of instructions that have been established by industry experts to provide uniform and consistent product. Although one finds “standards” in all industry segments, the aerospace fastener segment seems to have a higher percentage than most others.

In fact, over 40% of the aerospace fastener consumption can be classified as “standards”. Although the word standard lends itself to suggesting simplicity, in reality many parts considered “aerospace standards” are, in reality, very sophisticated, highly engineered parts. Unfortunately, because of the vast assortment of standards and the complexity level that some are achieving, navigating and understanding aerospace standards can sometimes be a challenge. This article is intended to demystify and explain some of the nuances of aerospace standard part description and marking practices.

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