Bay Supply Blog - Rivets, Fasteners, and Tools (10)

Sometimes, the job you’re on doesn’t require more power, but versatile power as well as mobility. If that’s the case, Bay Supply will soon be offering a tool that is perfect for your needs.

Arconic and Makita have teamed up to produce the Huck Range Force Battery Tool. This incredible advancement in adjustable force lockbolt/blind rivet installation technology gives users industry-leading performance for practically any application.

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 some projects, finding a fastener that works with thin or brittle materials can seem impossible. This is where rivet nuts, which are also known as a blind nuts, blind rivet nuts, or threaded inserts, come in. A variation on the standard rivet, the rivet nut has a tubular round, splined, square, or hexagonal body that is internally threaded and counterbored. As a blind fastener, the rivet nut is installed in instances where only one side of the workpiece is accessible, making it incredibly versatile.

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.