Author Archives Bossard

Bossard wants to improve your productivity by providing Smart Factory Logistics, act as your Assembly Technology Expert, and deliver product solutions that address every fastening challenge. We have over 200,000 catalog products. To make it more convenient for you to find the right solutions, we have recently released a catalog excerpt containing about 5,000 operating and control elements. This excerpt contains the following categories:

• Handwheels and Handles for manually adjusting equipment and controlling access to compartments through solid handwheels or cover crank handles with or without cylindrical handles that are either fixed or can fold away.
• Clamping Knobs to help with grip or secure components through lobes, texturing, or knurling, and in wing, star, cross, and three-star nuts or screws.
• Clamping and Tension Levers to hold or secure elements manually. They may use adjustable handles and may release tension through a button-push.
• Handles to ease movement or adjustments of machinery by providing a handhold. They may be cylindrical, plain spherical, or mushroom knobs, or may be T, bridge, or cylindrical handles.
• Control Elements let you control functions by maximizing your grip through knurling or by revealing adjustment gradations using numbered dividing marks.
• Leveling Elements help ensure that equipment remains level even if the surface they are resting on is not. Optional rubber inserts can prevent slipping.
• Indexing and Positioning Elements let you adjust elements efficiently and quickly. They include indexing handles, ball-lock pins, index plungers, ball-ended thrust screws, and spring and lateral plungers.
• Hinges allow elements such as doors and lids to move and include free-swinging variants that contain threaded studs or inserts, or through holes.

The quickest way to get this catalog is to download it to your PC as a PDF file. You can navigate immediately to the category you want by clicking the link in the table of contents.

Beyond this range of products, we also deliver over 10,000 customized solutions. We can provide the exact elements you need through joint development or drawings that you produce. For more information, please contact your local Bossard unit.

When advanced manufacturing demands the sealing of fluid ports, precision is critical but so is flexibility. So, many production environments now rely on expansion-style plugs to replace traditional sealing methods. To add value to many engine applications, the SFC KOENIG® line of expander seals boast liberal tolerances:

• Push-style plugs have tolerances of 0.1mm or 0.004 in.
• Pull-style plugs have tolerances of +0.12mm or 0.005 in.

These allowances have proven their value during part installation because they minimize the misalignment that is common for many seal types. An incorrectly calibrated cup seal or ball plug installation can require laborious and expensive fixes when removal and reinstallation of the plugs is necessary. The entire system may fail, increasing the potential for damage, safety risks, and warranty expenses. Errors also raise scrap rates, which further drives cost up.

KOENIG EXPANDER® seals offer many advantages:

• Allowances do not relate to the plug diameter. The entire expansion line can support a +0.1mm or +0.12mm tolerance even if the sealing component measures only 3mm. This flexibility becomes especially valuable when sealing small fluid ports.
• Typical seals, such as cup plugs, ball plugs, pin plugs, and other types of expansion-style plugs, demand extra machining, such as reaming, to prepare the hole. These additional processes can affect pressure limits for harder materials. KOENIG EXPANDER® seals require no such additions.
• Other plugs may increase their tolerances by using chemical sealants. But, such materials risk contamination and the eventual destruction of the seal barrier when affected by vibration and heat. By avoiding sealants and additives, KOENIG EXPANDER® seals create secure metal-to-metal seals that avoid those problems.
• Pin plugs require assembling two pieces during installation. KOENIG EXPANDER® seals consist of only one piece, which eliminates the errors of plug assembly, and improves manufacturing speed reliability.

The flexible tolerance allowances of KOENIG EXPANDER® seals have proven themselves in over five billion parts installed with a failure rate of less than one part per million. Such success helps to reduce costs, lowers risk, and increase reliability in today’s high-speed production environments.

For more information about SFC KOENIG® products, contact us today at ProvenProductivity@bossard.com.

The ProSert XTN20 has proven itself as a capable blind rivet nut tool because of its light weight, high speed, good ergonomics, long endurance, and flexibility in pull-to-stroke and pull-to-force modes. These factors add up to higher productivity and low installation cost for each fastener.

The tool includes multiple high-strength installation mandrels that install quickly and easily as explained by these steps in the following video.

• First, use a spanner wrench of the correct size to release the torque on both the lock nut and nose casing. You can then manually loosen and remove both the nose piece and the nose casing to reveal the mandrel.
• To release the mandrel, pull the nose pin away from the chuck nut and set it in the L groove. You can then manually loosen and remove the chuck nut as well as the mandrel.
• You can then reverse the process to install a new mandrel with a different size, the nose casing, and the nose piece.

Finally, adjust one of the following elements, depending on how you are setting the rivet nut.

• Stroke distance. Slide open the red sleeve in the back of the tool and then use the pin-push tool to adjust the silver dial for the minimum and maximum stroke length.
• Pressure. Push the silver button by the red knob and then turn the knob clockwise to increase pressure or counterclockwise to decrease the pressure.

Need more information on how to use different tools to install specific fasteners? Then please contact Bossard today at ProvenProductivity@Bossard.com.

As part of our commitment to adding value by delivering solutions to improve your productivity, this video introduces the rivet nut tool. Bossard’s North American Product Manager for Riveting and Clinching Technology demonstrates the advantages and use of this smart tool. This tool represents one of a series that includes tools for blind or POP® rivets, and torque drivers. All these tools operate on battery power to free you from cords and air hoses. This energy source lets you set up to 3,000 M6 rivet nuts on one charge. This rivet nut tool also operates faster than its air-hose counterpart. This can make a difference in productivity over many assemblies.

The smarts of the rivet nut tool come from its ability to track its use. It integrates a sensor that measures the force used to set each rivet nut with an accuracy of at least 99 percent. You can immediately check a green screen on the back of the tool to verify that the setting was successful.

Monitoring results displayed on a force-over-stroke curve is an option. Because you can program the tool with the included software, you can view and set acceptable limits for the tool. Those values are then assigned to an assembly serial number. Integrating an optional bar code scanner into the tool to read the number is possible. Several programs are then read into the tool and performed on the same workstation. An optional WiFi module can send data to a quality documentation computer without having to use cables and plugs.

 For more information, please contact us at ProvenProductivity@bossard.com today.

How do you know if the fastener you installed is tensioned to its specifications? How can you be sure that your line operators are installing the correct number of fasteners in the correct locations? If you are using a standard tool, you have no way of knowing for sure.

Smart Tools

That’s why Bossard offers several different “Smart Tools” with process monitoring capabilities. Tooling options exist for torque guns, blind rivets, blind rivet nuts, and lock bolts. Data from these tools is stored as either a torque/angle curve for torque guns or a force/stroke curve for riveting fasteners. Each type of tool functions slightly differently, but all can be outfitted with optional upgrades, such as a barcode scanner that allows the tool to associate a specific workpiece serial number with one or several completed fastener installations.

One tool can store many different programs and can install several different parts without the need for recalibration or adjustment of settings. For example, one Smart Tool for blind rivets can install three different rivets of the same diameter in succession without needing to adjust stroke distance or pulling force each time.

All tools are programmable and come with software to customize settings for any job, allowing a programmer to set OK/NOK limits on the measured quantities. OK readings from the tool will present the operator with a positive confirmation. NOK readings will present a notification that can be cleared by someone with the proper permissions – whether that is the operator, or a quality manager depends on the factory’s individual preferences.

The process monitoring function does not slow down tool cycle time, and Smart Tools outperform many standard tools in side-by-side speed tests.

For more information on how process monitoring can improve your quality assurance methods, contact Bossard today at ProvenProductivity@bossard.com.

Many standards exist relating to fasteners that detail geometry, mechanical properties, and finishes. At times, differentiating between these variations can be difficult. Below are a few of the most common standards for both inch fasteners and metric fasteners:

Inch Fasteners

Metric Fasteners

Most inch fastener standards have only one standard which governs dimensional characteristics of a part, but metric fasteners may have many standards. These standards are often the same, with a few notable exceptions:

Variations 

For metric fasteners, we recommend using ISO standards as they are the most recognized and used all over the world. Some catalogs still list DIN standard parts even though the DIN standard may be obsolete, and parts are still made to these obsolete standards. If you have any questions on which standard part is right for your build, contact us at ProvenProductivity@bossard.com for more information.

You know Bossard for the fastening products we offer to improve your products. Yet, this forms just one part of our methodology, designed to make your manufacturing and supply chain smarter, leaner, and more efficient. Our latest offering is a special catalog of around 5,000 operating and control elements, excerpted from our larger collection. They consist of the following categories.

Catalog Categories

• Handwheels and Handles enable manual adjustments to machinery and manage access to compartments. They include solid handwheels with fixed or fold-away cylindrical handles and no handles. They also cover crank handles with fixed and fold-away cylindrical handles.
• Clamping Knobs help with gripping and securing applications, and typically contain knurling, texturing, or lobes. They are available as both nuts or screws in three-star, star, cross, wing, grip, and knurled varieties.
• Clamping and Tension Levers allow for manually fixing or holding elements. They may have adjustable handles and may or may not require the push of a button to release tension.
• Handles improve grip on machinery for easier movement or adjustment. They include bridge handles with an ergonomically perfect design, T-handles, mushroom knobs, plain spherical knobs, cylindrical knobs, cylindrical handles that are fixed or revolving, and retractable cylindrical handles.
• Control Elements allow the adjustment of equipment functions with knurling to improve grip and numbered dividing marks to show gradations of control.
• Leveling Elements help stabilize machinery on uneven surfaces. They may be adjustable or rigid and may or may not include rubber inserts that prevent slipping.
• Indexing and Positioning Elements help you to remove or re-position elements quickly. They include spring and lateral plungers, ball-ended thrust screws, index plungers, ball-lock pins, and indexing handles.
• Hinges enable lids, doors, or other moving objects to open or close. They include free-swinging versions with through holes, threaded inserts, or threaded studs.

This list represents only our standard range of access hardware products. We can deliver over 10,000 customized solutions based on your specifications and drawings, or that are jointly developed by your engineers and our product specialists. For more information, please reach out to your local Bossard contact.