Piloted Bolt Design Speeds Installation Of Flexco® Heavy-Duty Bolt Solid Plate Conveyor-Belt Fasteners
11 March 2002
Flexco® Bolt Solid Plate conveyor-belt fasteners now feature a patent-pending bolt design said to trim up to 20 minutes off the typical downtime need for a bolted splice installation.
In a typical Bolt Solid Plate installation, holes are drilled in the belt ends guided by a special templet, then bottom plates and bolts are inserted upward from the underside of the belt. Top plates are then placed over the bolts protruding upward through the belt's top cover, specially tapered nuts are hand-turned onto the bolts, then tightened, typically with a special powered socket wrench.
Piloted bolts feature a 1/4" (6mm) threadless shank at the tip of each bolt, which allows the installer to place the special nuts loosely onto the upward protruding bolts without pausing to secure them in that position by hand-turning. The added shank length keeps the nuts in place until the wrench is applied. Eliminating that brief hand-turning pause at each bolt adds up to a considerable time savings across the entire installation. In addition, by narrowing the tip of the bolt, the threadless shank quickens the usually blind insertion of the bolts from the underside of the belt.
The piloted bolt feature is being phased into stock via new production as standard equipment with all Flexco Bolt Solid Plate fastener kits, at no increase in price.
