Civilization has been held together with threaded fasteners since the Paleolithic Period of the caveman. If the Neanderthal needed fire for warmth or a tasty meal, they used a wooden version of a screw to get the magic of fire started. Centuries ago, indigenous tribes in North America found rock drills and screws to be useful for numerous manufacturing purposes.
Fast-forward to the industrial age, nuts and bolts are used for green and fossil-fuel energy. Thousands of bolts are used in a single wind turbine…foundation bolts, nacelle, tower, gear box, blades, and hub. In a refinery, hundreds of thousands of nuts and studs hold high pressure vessels and cat-crackers together. Add to this hydro-crackers and delayed cokers, and you have another 100,000 nuts.
The point is that all of our daily lives depend on nuts and bolts. Common threaded standard nuts and bolts are readily available and stocked throughout the USA….until recently. Custom threads, such as Acme thread, metric, Williams thread, and coarse thread may become complex and lengthy to source.
Titan’s machinist crew has constantly reminded me that threads are “very tricky.” Is the original bolt plus or minus 1/1000? Is the nut plus or minus 2/1000? Do we have a thread gauge sample? If there is no sample, can we make a gauge that is accurate to the current application? Should we measure this new stud “under wires?” Why is this crap sample tapered and mis-manufactured, and why do we need to re-tool this? Aside from these pointed questions, Titan’s crew is incredibly successful at delivering the bolting “Mission Impossible.” As of this date, we have delivered 100% successful rods, shafts, nuts, and stud-repair sleeves (crossing my fingers into pretzels, and knocking on my wooden head until I’m dizzy!!!)
When our clients have an urgent critical-path need for bolts, I first reach out to the usual common vendors and get a quote. When the numbers get ridiculous, I look to our own machine crew. Often, we find that our custom bolt cost is Half of the “common vendor.”
Applications for our products include course thread rod, fine thread nuts for boiler feed pump turbines, Acme nuts, metric thread, unusual UN pitch, Williams thread, and threaded structural rod.
If you are looking for tools to connect and torque and tension all of this glorious threaded product, we offer bolt tensioners and hydraulic wrenches to make the connection. Rental, purchase, calibration, and repair for whatever you need.
