Reprint from China Fastener World Magazine, Vol. 188
Nuts, like screws and bolts, are, generally, a high volume commodity. As such, the most predominant method of manufacturing them starts
with cold forming a blank. However, lower volume or large size nuts more often use hot forging or screw machining techniques. For the purposes of this article, we will limit our discussion to the cold forming manufacturing method.
Reprint from China Fastener World Magazine, Vol. 187
What do Multi-station Formers Do?
Prior to considering the machine itself, we should first consider what consumers and manufacturers want from these machines. The answer to this question is pretty simple, consumers want quality parts, suited for the intended purpose at a reasonable price and manufacturers want to provide such parts with the most efficient processes or methods available. In other words, as parts become more complex and sophisticated they usually
become more challenging to manufacture. The manufacturer is motivated to remain competitive, and, therefore, must evolve their manufacturing capabilities to be as efficient as possible. Let us consider for example a high volume trimmed hex head part.
Reprint from China Fastener World Magazine, Vol. 186
Q: What are Aerospace Fasteners?
A: Aerospace Fasteners are fasteners that are used in aircraft and space vehicles. Normally the Aerospace Fastener market breaks into three segments; Commercial Aircraft, Business Jets, and Defense and Space. Many Aerospace Fasteners fall into similar categories as industrial and automotive fasteners, like bolts and screws, wrenchable nuts, and inserts but there are some fasteners that fall into categories only found in aerospace like pin and collars, anchor plates, and panel fasteners. Somewhere around 40% – 50% of all Aerospace Fasteners are made to National Aerospace Standards Committee (NASC) standards.
Reprint from China Fastener World Magazine, Vol. 190
Heat treating fasteners is a complicated topic with many details to keep track of. The following are some questions and answers that should shed some light on basic concepts.
Reprint from China Fastener World Magazine, Vol. 190
The man walked to his tool box, selected the right sized socket and returned to the piece of machinery he was trying to repair. He stared for a moment at the nut he was trying to loosen. It was badly corroded but he had done this many times before. Carefully seating the socket fully on the nut he began to apply pressure. At first nothing happened but then he felt a tiny change in the resistance, reinvigorating his incentive to keep pushing on the bar. Just as he thought he had given it his all, a resounding loud snap occurred catapulting him and his tools forward as his efforts were no longer restrained by the once stubborn but now broken bolt and nut. Crashing into the floor, he yelped in pain and cussed his misfortune.
Reprint from Fastener World Magazine, Vol. 177
There are many ways that fastener manufacturers can make quality deficient parts. If one attempted to classify the source of all these different failure modes and quality issues, they likely would emerge with three or four general categories. One of these general categories and perhaps the single greatest contributor to end product quality issues is the quality of the raw material from which every fastener starts. This article will explore some of the most common quality issues related to raw material and seek to simply describe how each specific issue has an impact on final part quality.
From Link Magazine, Fall 2014
On a cold night in April 1912 one of the world’s most enigmatic disasters unfolded, the sinking of what The White Star Line dubbed as the “unsinkable” ship, the RMS Titanic. Like many such events, discrepancies in eyewitness accounts, the passage of time, and the lack of hard evidence, has led to multiple theories and ideas over the years about what really happened. Suffice it to say though, the most likely explanation is that no one thing was responsible but rather many “small” things came together in the “perfect storm”. This cavalcade of events conspired against the passengers and crew on that fateful night to sink the “unsinkable” ship and seal its place in history as one of the all-time worst maritime accidents.
Although a hundred years later, we’re still searching for answers and one of the recent and more plausible theories that has been proposed has to do with, of all things…
From Fasteners Technology International, October 2014
In recent years, there has been a strong resurgence of interest in the wine and spirits industry. One of the advantageous traits of many wines and other spirits is their ability, or in some cases necessity, to age in the bottle or a wooden barrel. This “aging” time transforms the wine or spirit from a drink that may be initially quite nondescript or even “nasty” to one that is of fine quality and enjoyed by the consuming practitioner.
In much the same way, hot rolled rod looks to all but the trained eye like a product ready to go into a cold header and be made into bolts. Like wine though, at this stage looks can be deceiving and a variety of unpleasant surprises may be in store for fastener manufacturers that would consider
using hot rolled rod straight from the mill.
From Fasteners Technology International, August 2014
In the June/July 2014 issue of this magazine, we began this three-part series tracing the origins of cold heading wire and rod. In Part I, we looked at the steel-making process and how the CHQ wire and rod used in North America today mostly starts out as a combination of smelted or processed iron ore and steel sources melted in electric arc furnaces, refined and continuously cast into intermediate steel products known as billets or blooms.
It is from this point that we pick up the process. In this, Part II, of this series, we will explore how these intermediate products are transformed from a long, usually square or rectangular section of steel, to the “round” coiled rod we associate with raw material for cold heading.
From Link Magazine, Summer 2014
Over twenty-five years ago when I first started working in the fastener industry PPAP, ISO9000, and zero defects were not yet commonplace ideas. In fact, when I first started, sorting was all manual and reserved pretty much only for salvaging parts that a customer returned with a major problem. Today, it is a very different story. A large percentage of fasteners made or sold in the U.S. are sorted, with some companies serving certain industries or customers adopting the philosophy of sorting 100% of their
parts.