Tag Archives: Manufacturing

Where Does Cold Heading Wire & Rod Come From? Part 1 – Steel Making

Posted on by

From Fasteners Technology International, June 2014

Although our human nature is innately curious, we often simply don’t have the time to fully explore our world and accept many everyday occurrences at face value. For example, when we flip on a light switch we rarely, if ever, consider how that electricity was generated or delivered to our home. In a similar fashion, those of us who manufacturer fasteners rarely give much thought to how the raw materials we start with are transformed into a product that we can successfully cold head.

This article is the first of a three part series that looks at the origins and processes of cold heading quality wire and rod. Part one explores how steel is created today from both scrap and elemental sources and continuously cast into intermediate steel products. Part two will explore how these intermediate products are “broken down” and hot rolled to form coiled bar and rod. Part three will explore how hot rolled product is further processed into wire and rod that can be introduced and used in a cold header.

Download the full article (PDF) »

Basics of Austempering — A Thermal Hardening Process for Fasteners over HRC40

Posted on by

From Fasteners Technology International, February 2014

What do many lawn mower blades and automotive spring steel clips have in common? When considering their applications, probably very little, but in their product realization, they likely have both employed Austempering (a heat treating process) as their method for strengthening and toughening. Although over 75 years old, Austempering is a heat treating process that has really only become practically viable and commercially employed in the last 40 years. Austempering will likely never supplant conventional quench and tempering processes for the majority of threaded fastener applications, yet some of the advantages are so compelling that there will always be interest and activity in expanding the current application field. At hardness levels above 40 HRC, Austempered parts demonstrate improved mechanical properties such as toughness, ductility and strength over their quench and tempered counterparts of comparable hardness. Austempered parts undergo significantly less distortion, which reduces the subsequent cost of post heat treatment remediation.

Since this technology has direct application for the fastener industry, both now and well into the future, it is advisable for practitioners of the industry to have an understanding of the basics and enough information to consider what future possibilities might be waiting out there. The goal of this article is to provide a simplified explanation of this complex process and to explain some of its more compelling advantages.

Download the full article (PDF) »

Heat Treating Basics – A Primer

Posted on by

From Fastener Technology International, February 2013

A couple of years ago, I took up Sporting Clays, which is a shotgun shooting sport where the target, a four inch round clay disc, is presented to you in two different ways over a course composed of maybe 10 to 15 different stations. Although I am still “developing” my skills, I have found this to be a fun and challenging sport. I have enjoyed it so much that for my birthday last year my wife presented me with a year’s subscription to one of the sport’s magazines. This too I have enjoyed, but it quickly showed me, with no lack of frustration on my part, how very little I really know about the sport. I couldn’t tell you what the different target presentations are intended to represent, how competition is properly scored and for that matter what much of the terminology means.

In much the same way, when I was confronted early in my career with the process of heat treating fasteners, all but a few basic concepts that I remembered from my beginning Engineering Materials class were unknown and cloudy. As I gained more experience, asked questions, learned how parts were manufactured, saw the process and participated in the industry’s technical community, I gained clarity and understanding. However, for those not normally engaged in technical activities or those new to the industry, I imagine that much about heat treating is shrouded in mystery. Why does one heat treat a fastener? How does it work? What is some of the important terminology? This article is intended to help give some simple answers to these questions and unwrap the mystery for those that have no reason or need to hold a metallurgy or engineering degree, but desire to know a little more about fasteners.

For the purposes of this article I will limit our discussion to basic carbon steel and carbon alloy fasteners. This covers the vast majority of fasteners, but certainly not all. Many specialty and highly engineered fasteners utilize more exotic materials that have special and unique metallurgy and often complicated mechanisms to improve physical properties. The bottom line is that this topic can be studied to great depths and there is much to know, even at the simplest level. This article will only touch on the most basic of these concepts.

 

Download the full article (PDF) »

Are You Familiar With Common Failure Modes On Roll Threaded Products?

Posted on by

From Fastener Technology International, December 2012

I can vividly remember the first time I walked onto the manufacturing floor of a fastener manufacturer. I was not a rookie to a manufacturing environment, having spent the previous two years in a large metal stamping facility, but the “rat-tat-tat” sound of multiple headers banging out hundreds of parts a minute was a big departure from the “ker-chunk” sound of a 2000 lb press forming a car’s hood or quarter panel that I had grown accustomed to. Although the headers were center stage and what I would subsequently naturally showcase during hundreds of plant tours in the years afterward, it was the humble thread roller that left an indelible memory during that first plant tour.

I suppose this impression was far less the result of any impressiveness of the machine itself and more on the ingenuity and complete unexpectedness of the rolling process. At that time, my paradigm was shaped from the only experience I had in threading a bolt, and that was using a tap and die set on my garage workbench. I guess I simply assumed that all threaded fasteners employed a tap or die in some fashion.

Therefore, I was fascinated to see parts being rolled between two flat plates at speeds so fast that they obscured the parts and transformed them into an unrecognizable blur. I walked away transfixed and appreciative of the creativity and ingenuity of some long past engineer. It would only be much later that I would fully appreciate the art of this process, but also the multitude of ways that it could produce defects and defective parts. This article is not intended to be an in-depth and detailed look at process, dies, set-up or any number of other factors that play a part in the conditions of the end product, but rather a brief introduction to the common failure modes that can result from thread rolling.

Download the full article (PDF) »

Converting Screw Machined Parts to Cold Formed Parts

Posted on by

machinedFrom Fastener Technology International, June 2012

In this day and age where customers are expecting more suggestions and input from their suppliers,
a recommendation to convert a part from screw machining to cold forming could provide advantages.

As more customers and OEMs reduce engineering and purchasing staffs, they are placing greater dependence and responsibility on their vendors and suppliers to generate both quality and cost improvement ideas. If your customer only purchases standard cold formed fasteners, providing ideas might prove to be a real challenge. However, if your customer’s product is either complicated or its purchasing or engineering resources are not well educated in cold forming technology, there may be an opportunity to conduct a value engineering exercise and review the possibility of converting screw machined parts to cold formed parts.

Download the full article (PDF) »