Bay Supply Blog - Rivets, Fasteners, and Tools | Mike Eichinger (13)

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.

No matter what type of OEM or manufacturing operation you have, maintaining reliable suppliers and parts has to be a priority. It’s amazing how many OEMs go for lowest price or quickest delivery without checking out the supplier. Too often, they get stuck with inferior parts, the wrong part, or the supplier is unable to provide parts the next time and OEMs have to hunt for a new source.

Inventory management can bog down your productivity, not to mention hurt the bottom line. How often do you run out of fasteners, and how many people take unnecessary time out of their work days to track down additional inventory? These disruptions result in wasted time and wasted resources.

Although fasteners might seem like nothing more than a small piece to a much larger project, they’re actually an incredibly critical part of any machine or structure. These pieces of hardware usually join two or more materials together, either permanently or temporarily, so start by asking yourself some basic questions: