Tag Archives: Processes

Protecting Fasteners from Corroding Part 1: Basics of Corrosion and Protection Mechanisms

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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.

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Where Does Cold Heading Wire & Rod Come From? Part 3 – Wire Processing

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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.

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Where Does Cold Heading Wire & Rod Come From? Part 2 – Hot Rolling

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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