Bay Supply Blog - Rivets, Fasteners, and Tools | Mike Eichinger (12)

Blind rivets provide outstanding fastening functionality in places where you don’t have access to one side. But what if your application requires something a little less permanent than a rivet? What if you want to be able to undo bolts, but keep your options open to reinsert them as needed? And what if you can’t see the other side of the surface you are working on?

Bay Supply, the largest engineered fastening supply warehouse in the United States, is pleased to announce it is now an authorized distributor of Goebel fasteners. Bay Supply has a proven track record in marketing and supporting emerging brands like Goebel.

A major economic story of 2018 has been the tariffs the White House has imposed on other nations and the resulting trade war from tariffs being imposed back on the United States. Initially, tariffs on steel and aluminum did not apply to materials produced in Canada, Mexico, and the European Union, but as the trade war has escalated, those markets’ imports now are subject to tariffs as well—25 percent on steel, 10 percent on aluminum.

In modern manufacturing, especially in transportation, lighter is the becoming the new standard.

Vehicles that aren’t as heavy tend to get better mileage and fuel efficiency (including getting more from the charge on electric vehicles), are better for the environment, reduce structural fatigue, and can even improve performance. Increasingly, manufacturers are deciding lightweight manufacturing is smart business.

A modern Boeing 747 contains about 1 million rivets. If each rivet took a hypothetical five seconds to place, you would need more than 57 days around the clock to complete the job. Of course, building a 747 takes longer than 57 days, but you get the idea—the labor behind the riveting for creating such an enormous machine is substantial.

With many heavy duty, industrial applications, regular fasteners usually don’t make sense. For jobs where one side of the workpiece is unreachable or where welding isn’t an option, steel structural blind bolts are the perfect permanent and secure solution.

Whether you’re fixing an oversized or misplaced hole or need to complete a repair on original equipment (OEM), key locking inserts are the ideal fastener for repairing damaged threads.

From snowmobiles to rail joints, excavators to farm equipment, vibration can lead to costly—and sometimes dangerous—fastener failures. The key to maintaining installation integrity? The Huck 360® powerbolt, which is the most impressive vibration-resistant fastener on the market today.

With their impressive formability, strength, and durability, steel rivets are one of the most common—and long-lasting—fastening materials on the market. According to Assembly magazine, they’re also one of the oldest blind rivets: “The first steel blind rivets were developed for use in the auto industry during the Great Depression.”

There are always situations in manufacturing and construction where welds just can’t do the job. When assembling products for automotive, container manufacture, aerospace, railway, mining, and so on, you need a reliable, fail-proof joint that can withstand stress and vibrations. That’s when it’s time to look at lockbolts.