Metallic Coating Increases Rivet Production!

At BS Stainless we are more than just a supplier of metal materials. So when we were approached by a world renowned rivet manufacturer to provide a solution to improve production efficiency we were delighted to offer our help.

The issue the client was facing was machine downtime caused by the current soap coating on their production wire. The soap coating on the wire aids lubrication when producing rivets. This lubrication is needed due to the high deformation process caused when forming the rivet body and head. During the process some of the soap is naturally removed, however, it mixes with the machine oil that over time increases the viscosity of the oil. Due to this, one day every week was dedicated to stripping the machines down, cleaning and renewing the oil, then putting it back together again. The soap also caused further production delays as some of the soap remained on the surface of the finished product. Therefore, the rivets were subjected to cleaning through an acid bath.

Using our knowledge and expertise, we worked with our manufacturing mill to find a solution. We looked at several coatings that could help. After several trials of various coatings, we settled on a metallic coating for the wire. We presented the solution to the client along with several sample coils of wire for them to test on their machines. After they trialled the new coating, it was proven that the metallic coating did not mix with the oil like the soap coating did and the extra cleaning process to remove the soap coating was no longer needed.

 The next step was to move on to a full production trial to calculate the improvement of efficiency and we are pleased to say that after a week’s full production of equal quality rivets it was shown production had seen a 20% increase.

 The new metallic coating solution is now being rolled out to the clients other manufacturing facilities where they hope to show the same improvement giving them an edge in the industry.