How You Can Tell Military Grade Fasteners Apart From Commercial Grade Fasteners
Uh-oh. Did somebody overturn the wall of fasteners in your factory and now you have to sort them out again? If you have both military grade fasteners and commercial grade fasteners spilled out all over the floor, you need help figuring out what is what. Get your employees together, specifically the ones that can tell these fasteners apart because they work with them so often. It will be a learning experience for everyone as you work to sort the fasteners. Here is a crash course in telling these two types of fasteners apart.
Military Fasteners Are Larger Than Most
Because military grade fasteners hold military machines together, they are often larger than most. Think bolts and rivets for planes and tanks, if that helps. There may be some commercial grade fasteners that are equally as large, but if your plant does not assemble or construct dump trucks, backhoes, and the like, most of your commercial fasteners are going to be much smaller.
Military Fasteners Are Traceable
Almost all military grade fasteners are traceable. That means that each fastener you pick up off the floor needs to be examined for a series of numbers and letters stamped on the fastener. The military keeps track of these fasteners in the event that the fasteners fail. Then the numbers on the fasteners can be traced back to the company that used them to assemble their machines and/or to the company that manufactured the fasteners. It may even be helpful to pull out your inventory list of military grade fasteners so you can check each fastener off as it is found on the floor and distributed into the correct sorting bucket.
Military Fasteners Are in Metric
Because the military imports many components for plane, ship, and tank building from other countries, it relies on the international metric system for construction of these vessels. As such, most, if not all, of the military fasteners in your factory are in metric measurements. If you come across any fasteners that are either not identifiable by your employees or cannot be identified by any other means, test them for metric measurement. If they are in metric form, it is a safe bet that you can toss them in a separate bucket for metric parts and assume that they are military grade until proven otherwise. If they are not metric, you may have to find similar non-metric parts and store these fasteners in that bucket.
For more information, contact a company that specializes in military fasteners, such as Milcom Supply & Manufacturing Inc.
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