BAZINGA! You’re a Bolt!

There are some folks in my life that are trailblazers. I mean, hit the ground running, move or I’ll move ya kind of people. While I’m an early riser, I’m a blink slowly for a bit, enjoy the hugs in a mug, blink slowly again, and gradually ease into the day. Takes all kinds to make a world, right?

In the course of my career as a buyer for steel distribution and service centers, sales people typically are the trailblazer types. Most I know get up well ahead of the sun, have followed up to all the “pendings”, and has sent me several requests for quotes, requests to pull material in or find 8500 lbs. for an order that the “customer can’t wait for ex mill” before they’ve even poured their first cup of coffee. The day plan of these Type A’s have been perfected over the years and nothing, absolutely nothing gets in the way of that plan. They have this mad skill to keep the course, perfect adherence to the five minute rule so that by the end of the day, all is done except for those onesies and twosies of things that allow them to launch in the wee hours while coffee is brewing.

At this point, I may or may not have brushed my teeth.

I’ve such a gal in my Dallas branch. This gal is the “whisperer of one offs” like I’ve never seen in my entire buying career. I admire her drive, tenacity, and determination to exhaust attempts to the very end. She’s good at selling metal and she is the queen of asking me questions that start with “Will you ask the mill…”

Of course I will.

Over the years, she and I have learned a lot together and I’m very grateful for her talent to close the deal for her but mostly the opportunity she gives me to learn something about the world I live when it comes to steel.

She had been working an account, trying to get us and our material in their shop and away from a large competitor in her specific selling area. The customer had always bought mid to large size diameter bars from us but she wanted that small diameter business. Small diameter stainless, just so ya know, for this particularly customer is used for fastening the larger diameter stuff together. And the opportunity for smaller diameter stuff could very easily exceed the weight of the mid to large diameter stuff. More metal = more money for her, right? The coolest thing about this inquiry was the education — for all of us.

Change in buyers at this customer so in the chat of what we can supply, the conversation rolled around to bolting. Yep. Bolts. I call them fasteners, but hey, who’s keeping track of what’s what, right? The newbie was told by various peeps at the shop, that while we’ve a load of 303 stainless, we don’t supply to bolting standards.

OH! YOU BETTER TAKE THAT BACK RIGHT NOW!

Because we do. Here’s how.

All (as in inclusive) round stainless bar that is in compliance to ASTM A320 can be evaluated for compliance to bolting standards. Those standards would be:

A193 and A320.

Hot rolled, cold finished or cold drawn — it’s not a big at all. Just a note here -A320 includes 303 where A320 does not.

Bolting has it’s own nomenclature (yeah, I get it, not the correct use of the word, but it works here) to “callout” the metal grades.

A193 Grades are

Here’s another about the austenitic grades (those mentioned above). Process annealing is allowed. Recall the post about times and temps? Process annealing allowed does NOT require / need a separate annealing. If you don’t know what process or path of the mill, give them a quick shout as they will advise you.

For complete compliance evaluation tho, send to your mill rep. They are always more than happy to take a quick peek. My experience is that bar can be a bolt.

I leave you with this —

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” Albert Einstein