Making connections: How fasteners can improve quality and control costs

Making connections: How fasteners improve quality and control costs

November 27, 2023
By Bob Lund | Four decades of engineering experience

Like most people, you’re probably obsessed with the quality of fasteners. Oh. You’re not? Well then, let’s start with this: Fasteners, the essential components that hold everything together, need to be trustworthy.

How do we ensure the quality and reliability of fasteners? The answer starts with fastener standards, takes a turn through the world of manufacturing, and finishes with how plating enhances performance.

Standards make it possible

If you’re old school and buy “Old School” on DVD, what makes it possible to watch it on your home player? Standards.

Because all discs and players are made to meet standards, you can trust that Will Ferrell will show up on your screen. It doesn’t matter whether you have a Toshiba, Sony, or LG device. It’ll play. That same reliability is why fastener standards were created. For decades and decades now, we’ve been able to buy a half-inch diameter bolt at one store, go to another for a matching nut, and know that they’ll work together.

Due to the need of interchangeability, standards committees were developed.

ASTM: for the strengths
SME: for the sizes and dimensions

So, different groups of people are involved to make sure we have a uniform part that is basically always going to be the same regardless of where you buy it.

Once you reach that level, now the designers have repeatability and dependability, so the quality is inherently much better.

Picking a production method

When it comes to manufacturing fasteners, you probably don’t want to pay for the exact same part every single time. Why not? Let’s revisit that same half-inch diameter bolt from the store.

If we have a fastener that's supposed to be a half inch in diameter, what does it cost to make it exactly .500" in diameter every time? A lot.

But it's a little cheaper if you can take it anywhere from .499" to .501", and it may be even a little less expensive with a wider range. This is all because you have different types of manufacturing processes that are creating the finished part.

A range of .499" to .501" is OK? Great. Cold forming is quicker and cheaper.
Need it to be precisely .500"? It has to be made on a CNC.

Preventing corrosion

If something lasts 100 hours in a salt spray test, which is the way that we test in the industry, does that mean it's going to last a year or 10 years? Or how does that change from one location to another? For farm areas in Iowa, as long as you're not putting fertilizer on the fasteners, say if it's just a speed limit sign, that bolt is going to last a lot longer than if that same speed limit sign was sitting on a coastal area near Los Angeles.

Why? Well, there’s a lot more smog and saltwater in the atmosphere in L.A. In other words, there's a lot more eating at the plating or coating that you have on your fastener.

You're really comparing apples and oranges from one location to another. So, that's a lot of what we do. We work with people to help identify where the parts are going to be used. It’s all about finding the right amount of resistance for the expected use case.

Takeaways

If you’re looking to improve overall quality, a surprising place to start is with your fasteners. You’ll want to consider these points.

Usage matters. Know how (and where) your fasteners are going to be used.
Use a print. Whether it’s from us or one of your own, prints ensure you get what you need.
Fight corrosion. From lifespan hours to how much of the bolt is actually plated, there’s a lot that goes into plating.
Manufacturability matters. Nonstandard parts are one thing but non-makable is another.
Ask for help. Engineers know how to fit a fastener to a project. People too often pick fasteners that SEEM correct, but they don’t truly KNOW what to pick.

Looking for help with a project? Email us at [email protected]. We can work with you to get your project to a point where the quality and cost are where you need them to be.