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virginia boy · 01-07-2012, 10:04

I'll be buying about 700 dollars worth of various bronze nuts, bolts, washers etc but because of the sketchy quality control found in chinese and Indian sourced metals I want made in USA fasteners ONLY.

I hear that some of west Marine's and Defender's fasteners are Chinese made and since these bolts will be underwater, keeping my rudder from falling off they absolutely need to be trustworthy. Who's got the good stuff?

The largest fasteners will be 3/8 x 2 3/4 hex head bolts with nuts and washers.

Thanks, Eric

tandem tantrum · 01-07-2012, 10:12

Try this place.
Buy Nuts And Bolts | Aluminum, Silicon Bronze, Nylon & Galvanized Nuts Bolts, Fasteners Suppliers | Metric & Stainless Steel Nuts | Nylon Threaded Rod, Screws & Washers - The Nutty Company, Inc.

A sad thing, I lived in Connecticut and Waterbury was once called the brass city. I had a very hard time finding any.

Cheechako · 01-07-2012, 10:19

You might try Tacoma Screw Products. They used to have the good stuff and lots of Bronze stuff too. Not sure if they are a mail order house, but imagine they will ship.
Probably best to communicate with them by phone or email, I dont think their site is really set up for easy browsing... here it is: http://www.tacomascrew.com/products/search/bronze
Industrial supplier, you could fax them a list and ask for a quote. Shipping might be a bitch though. Although you can put 70 lb in a $14.90 Priority Mail box!

virginia boy · 01-07-2012, 10:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by tandem tantrum

Try this place.
Buy Nuts And Bolts | Aluminum, Silicon Bronze, Nylon & Galvanized Nuts Bolts, Fasteners Suppliers | Metric & Stainless Steel Nuts | Nylon Threaded Rod, Screws & Washers - The Nutty Company, Inc.

A sad thing, I lived in Connecticut and Waterbury was once called the brass city. I had a very hard time finding any.

I tried calling but it's Sunday so got a recording but I checked out their website.
I didn't see anything about where their stuff is made. It seems to me that if it were made in the US it would be plainly advertised as such.

Jentine · 01-07-2012, 11:35

I have purchased silicon bronze fittings from these folks and specified USA made and been happy. They also have Chinese fitting so be sure to specify.
Fln-Mar - Industrial Distributors and Fabricators Since 1969

Stumble · 01-07-2012, 11:58

Virginia,

If you are interested we can supply titanium fasteners made in either the US or Europe. I haven't priced siliconized bronze in a while, but our prices are likely comparable, and titanium parts are much stronger, and corrosion resistant.

Any thoughts on exacally what alloy you want to use? Often it isn't the location of manufacturing, but the junk they pass off as bronze these days that is the problem. Figure out exacally what alloy you want, then when you buy, ask to see the certificates with the parts. This will ensure you are getting exacally the alloy specified.

virginia boy · 01-07-2012, 12:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stumble

Virginia,

If you are interested we can supply titanium fasteners made in either the US or Europe. I haven't priced siliconized bronze in a while, but our prices are likely comparable, and titanium parts are much stronger, and corrosion resistant.

Any thoughts on exacally what alloy you want to use? Often it isn't the location of manufacturing, but the junk they pass off as bronze these days that is the problem. Figure out exacally what alloy you want, then when you buy, ask to see the certificates with the parts. This will ensure you are getting exacally the alloy specified.

I'm not a metallurgist and I can't describe the exact alloy that would be suitable for my purpose. I'd hoped that in the US we would have by now worked out a set of standards for most applications. There must be someone who can prescribe and treat?

CarlF · 01-07-2012, 14:14

I'd call Jamestown Distributors and Hamilton Marine

Boat Building and Woodworking Supplies
Welcome To Hamilton Marine

Both serve a lot of boat builders and have excellent customer service. Don't work off the web site but call them. They'll know where their fasteners are made and understand why you care.

Carl

Blue Stocking · 01-07-2012, 14:47

If you can find a supplier of Nettleford(s) bronze fasteners, you will have IMHO, some of the highest quality English made bronze screws and threaded gear ever.
These were proper cut screws, and used to come with Glen-L kits,
I have thousands of 3/4" to 1 1/2" in #6 and #8.
Maybe one of our UK sailors can help?

virginia boy · 01-07-2012, 15:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blue Stocking

If you can find a supplier of Nettleford(s) bronze fasteners, you will have IMHO, some of the highest quality English made bronze screws and threaded gear ever.
These were proper cut screws, and used to come with Glen-L kits,
I have thousands of 3/4" to 1 1/2" in #6 and #8.
Maybe one of our UK sailors can help?

If you enjoy history, here is a Wiki of GKN (N=Nettlefold's)

It doesn't appear they're still in the fasteners business, but I had fun learning about them.

History

[edit]1759 to 1900
Main article: Dowlais Ironworks
The origins of GKN lie in the founding of the Dowlais Ironworks in the village of Dowlais, Merthyr Tydfil, Wales by Thomas Lewis and Isaac Wilkinson. John Guest was appointed manager of the works in 1767, having moved from Broseley.[3] In 1786, John Guest was succeeded by his son, Thomas Guest, who formed the Dowlais Iron Company with his son-in-law William Taitt. Guest introduced many innovations and the works prospered.[4]

Dowlais Ironworks by George Childs (1840)
Under Guest's leadership, alongside his manager John Evans, the Dowlais Ironworks gained the reputation of being "one of the World's great industrial concerns".[5] Though the Bessemer process was licensed in 1856, nine years of detailed planning and project management were needed before the first steel was produced. The company thrived with its new cost-effective production methods, forming alliances with the Consett Iron Company and Krupp.[5] By 1857 G.T. Clark and William Menelaus, his manager, had constructed the "Goat Mill", the world's most powerful rolling mill.[6]
By the mid 1860s, Clark's reforms had born fruit in renewed profitability. Clark delegated day-to-day management to Menelaus, his trusteeship terminating in 1864 when ownership passed to Sir Ivor Guest. However, Clark continued to direct policy, in particular, building a new plant at the docks at Cardiff and vetoing a joint-stock company. He formally retired in 1897.[5]
[edit]1900 to 1966
On 9 July 1900, the Dowlais Iron Company and Arthur Keen's Patent Nut and Bolt Company merged to form Guest, Keen & Co. Ltd.[7]
Nettlefolds Limited, a leading manufacturer of fasteners, had been established in Smethwick, Birmingham in 1854 and was acquired in 1902 leading to the change of name to Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds.[7]
These mergers heralded half a century in which the name GKN became synonymous with the manufacture of screws, nuts, bolts and other fasteners. The company reflected the vertical integration fashionable at the time embracing activities from coal and ore extraction, and iron and steel making to manufacturing finished goods.
After the First World War it became apparent that Britain was likely to follow France and more recently the USA in developing a large scale auto-industry.[8] GKN acquired another fastener manufacturer, F. W. Cotterill Ltd., in 1919: Cotterill already owned a subsidiary named J. W. Garrington, which specialised in forgings, and it was the forgings produced at the Garrington Darlaston plant, later supplemented by a large plant at Bromsgrove, that enabled GKN to become a major supplier of crankshafts, connecting rods, half-shafts and numerous smaller forged components to the UK auto-industry during and beyond the period of massive expansion between the two world wars.[8]
The next year, in 1920, GKN purchased the steel company John Lysaght and their subsidiary, Joseph Sankey and Sons Ltd.[8] Joseph Sankey was an orphan from Bilston whose career had started with an apprenticeship to a manufacturer of steel tea trays. When he went into business on his own account, Sankey himself became a major tea tray producer. He was also a pioneer motorist and a personal friend of car manufacturers in the area including, notably, Herbert Austin, becoming a supplier of sheet steel components to the industry.[8] By 1914, the company's customers for sheet steel bodies included Austin, Daimler, Humber, Rover, Star and Argyll.[8] Sankey's most substantial contribution was probably in respect of wheels, however, and was a response to complaints from pioneer car-makers about the propensity of the wooden wheels on early cars to disintegrate on the slightest encounter with any roadside kerb.[8] Sankey developed a pressed steel wheel, applying some of the techniques already mastered while producing pressed steel tea trays.[8] Sankey's steel wheels went into production in 1908: early customers included Herbert Austin and William Morris.[8] In addition to his original factory at Bilston a new plant was established near Wellington, Shropshire which was devoted to wheel production.[8] By the time the business came into the GKN fold, the plant was supplying wheels to many UK manufacturers: within GKN the business continued to grow with the industry, so that by 1969 the by now highly automated Wellington plant was turning out some 5½ Million wheels a year at a maximum rate of approximately 30,000 per day.[8] Nevertheless, the Sankey business was never exclusively devoted to wheels: in the 1960s they were supplying the chassis for the Triumph Herald and its derivatives.[8] They were also at this time building the versatile GKN developed GKN FV432 armoured personnel carrier which would continue in production long after the disappearance of the Triumph Herald and its ill-starred manufacturer, BLMC.[8]
[edit]1966 to 2000
In 1966, in a programme of diversification, GKN acquired Birfield Ltd, a company that since 1938 had incorporated both the Sheffield based overdrive manufacturer, Laycock Engineering, and Hardy Spicer Limited of Birmingham, England, a manufacturer of constant-velocity joints.[8] Historically, such joints had had few applications, even following the improved design proposed by Alfred H. Rzeppa in 1936. However, in 1959, Alec Issigonis had developed the revolutionary Mini motor car which relied on the Hardy Spicer joints for its front wheel drive technology. The massive expansion in the exploitation of front wheel drive in the 1970s and 1980s led to the acquisition of other similar businesses and a 43% share of the world market by 2002.[7]
On the death of founder Tony Vandervell in 1967, GKN acquired the lucrative Maidenhead based Vandervell bearing manufacturer which was at the time already exporting more than 50% of its output to overseas vehicle manufacturers.[8] This was part of a larger trend for GKN which during this period, under its Managing Director Raymond Brookes, was working to reduce its dependence on UK auto-maker customers at a time when the domestic industry was seen to be stumbling, in response to bewildering "Government interference and fiscal short-sightedness", with British new car registrations in the first four months of 1969 a massive 33% down on the corresponding period of the previous year.[8]
As a result of the large number of mergers, Abram Games was commissioned to developed a new corporate identity in 1969 when the distinctive angular GKN symbol was created and the new company colours of blue and white introduced.[9]
During the 1980s, GKN sought to invest its earnings from constant-velocity joints in developing other nascent technologies. However, little success attended these efforts and in 1991 the company resolved to abandon further research and to redivert its development efforts towards its constant-velocity joint business in which it was facing increasing competition from Japan. During the same period, the company finally withdrew from the manufacture of fasteners and from steel production. Changing its name to GKN plc, it diversified into military vehicles, aerospace and industrial services.
In 1994, GKN acquired the helicopter manufacturing business of Westland Aircraft.[7] In 1998 the armoured vehicle business was sold to Alvis plc,[7] and subsequently incorporated into Alvis Vickers Ltd. In July 2000 Finmeccanica and GKN agreed to merge their respective helicopter subsidiaries to form AgustaWestland.[7] In 2004 GKN completed the sale of its 50% shareholding in AgustaWestland to Finmeccanica.[7]
From the late 1990s, the company built a major global business in powder metallurgy, which operates as the GKN Sinter Metals group.[7]
[edit]2000 to present
In 2006 GKN acquired Monitor Aerospace Corp in Amityville, New York and Precision Machining in Wellington, Kansas.[10]
In 2008 the company acquired part of the Airbus plant at Filton near Bristol for £150 million.[11]
On 28 July 2011, GKN made public a deal with Getrag in which GKN would acquire all of Getrag's axle business and axle manufacturing facilities.[12]
[edit]Operations

The company is organised as follows:[2]
Aerospace[13]
Aerostructures
Engine Products
Propulsion Systems
Driveline
Driveshafts
Freight Services
Autostructures
Cylinder liners, Sheepbridge Stokes
Emitec Joint Venture
Land Systems
Aftermarket Services
Power Management
Wheels and Structures
Powder metallurgy
Sinter Metals
Hoeganaes

Stumble · 01-07-2012, 23:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by virginia boy

I'm not a metallurgist and I can't describe the exact alloy that would be suitable for my purpose. I'd hoped that in the US we would have by now worked out a set of standards for most applications. There must be someone who can prescribe and treat?

Honestly from a metallurgist stand point, and from an engineers there are a lot of different alloys and they all have a place on boats. With the exception of titanium (

) there just isn't a perfect metal. For instance 316 is very corrosion resistant, but relatively week. Aluminium is terrible in tensile strength, but very light, bronze can either be strong or weak, corrosion resistant or not, depending on the alloy you use.

Though typically there is a trade off somewhere. So high strength bronze also tends to be very brittle. Strong until it breaks, but when it fails it fails catastrophically. Much like the argument of steel, vs fiberglass, vs wood boats, they all have their used, the trick is to know which to use where.

If you really want to know the 'best' answer, hiring a NA or Professional Engineer is the only way to be sure.

Blue Stocking · 02-07-2012, 02:56

Virginia boy,

Thanks for the trip down memory lane

I guess all good things come to an end.
The Nettlefolds were still available in 1969 when I built my Friendship sloop.
But the good new news is my BMW transmission was built by the "grandchildren" Getrag,--or so it appears. Ooohhh well!!!

Edit:
Went back and read it a second time--best credentials ever--manufactured TEA TRAYS