FALL 2022

8 THE DISTRIBUTOR’S

8 THE DISTRIBUTOR’S LINK Laurence Claus Laurence Claus is the President of NNi Training and Consulting, Inc. He has 25 years of experience with a medium sized automotive fastener manufacturer, holding positions including Vice President of Engineering, General Manager, Director of Quality, Director of New Business Development and Applications Engineer. In 2012 he formed NNi offering technical and business training courses as well as technical consulting, expert witness and consultation work. He can be reached at 847-867-7363 or by email: Lclaus@NNiTraining.com. You can learn more about NNi at www.NNiTraining.com. WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THREAD FORMING SCREWS FOR PLASTIC Although plastics have been utilized in consumer products for over a hundred years, it really wasn’t until the early 1980’s that manufacturers started to incorporate more plastic components into their products. As with the genesis of many new technologies, their launch was slowed because users were hesitant to adopt what was new or the technology had bugs that still needed working out. In fact, many new technologies fit this latter category and require other complementary or enabling technologies to emerge before they become successful. A memorable example of this was illustrated during the launch of the Boeing 787. Boeing was set to revolutionize modern airliners by employing all carbon fiber construction and novel new assembly methods. They were well into the fabrication of their first couple of aircraft, however, before discovering that traditional fastening techniques did not work with their new carbon fiber components. Consequently launch was delayed while they worked with several of their primary fastener suppliers to develop or employ new fastener technology and engineering to solve these challenges. In a similar vein, one of the things that delayed the introduction of plastics into the mainstream was a reliable fastening solution to other plastic or metallic components. On the surface this would seem to be a simple problem, but the earliest screws available for the purpose, such as wood and sheet metal screw derivatives, were unpredictable and often generated manufacturing and assembly problems. In fact, when I first started in the TECHNICAL ARTICLE industry thirty-five years ago as an Applications Engineer, most of the large plastic resin suppliers instructed users against implementing threaded fasteners of any kind. Unfortunately, the lack of a fastening option with screws represented a big set back to the plastics industry and spurred new innovation. As the need for new solutions increased, the fastener community rose to the challenge so that today there are several screw designs especially well thought out for fastening into thermoplastic materials which save users the expense of other, cost intensive, fastening methods. In fact, thread forming variants of self-tapping screws are, today, the most widely used and industry accepted method for fastening plastic and metal parts to other plastic components. Since this is no longer a small niche market and there are many designs among the good ones that are not well suited for fastening into plastics, every fastener distributor offering these products should possess some in-house expertise. It is important to recognize that many different products are offered today for fastening plastics. Some are well thought out and deliver an excellent solution for the uniqueness of plastic materials. Some, however, do not perform as well or are simply screws designed for another purpose and rebranded as a screw for fastening plastics. It is this second group of screws that wreak havoc on distributors and customers alike because of the problems they create in service. CONTINUED ON PAGE 118