Welcome to 2021!

Our team at Austin Hardware® would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year! A new year means new solutions, but with us, you can guarantee the same great service, quality, and commitment that we are known for. We look forward to helping you find new solutions for your business, streamline any current projects, help you with sourcing, your supply chain, and more. At Austin, we are your one-stop-shop. We thrive on helping customers, and partners like you streamline your business practices and work to provide top-notch solutions. If you are ready to learn more about our solutions for the new year, keep reading below...

Austin Hardware® is a leading supplier for essential, life-saving industries, including life-saving devices for ambulances, EMS, and other emergency vehicles. Our engineering team works hard to provide top-of-the-line products that save lives. The average EMS response time is less than 20 minutes. Each minute during an emergency response is crucial for patient care. We work hard to provide quicker response times for emergency medical teams, and enhancing patient care is important to providing the best safety solutions. Our complete line of safety solutions is designed to save lives and support essential industries.  

In an earlier post on structural fasteners, we began discussion on lockbolts. A lockbolt is a 2-piece, permanent, mechanically locked structural fastener. Their primary benefit is that they offer long-lasting vibration resistance and won't loosen even under the most extreme vibration. This is because an installed, fully swaged (cold-formed collar on the grooved pin) lockbolt has no gaps between the grooves of the pin and the swaged collar, as found in threaded fasteners such as nuts and bolts. It's essentially a best-of-both-worlds hybrid of a bolt and a rivet.

From the Wild West to the Midwest, Austin Hardware® knows a thing or two about horse trailers, and we work with some of the top horse trailer manufacturers in the business. Your horse and your trailer are both major investments for you, and you want to be sure you can enjoy your invested dollars while keeping your horse safe and comfortable during transport. Horse trailers come in various options, sizes, and investment levels. There are many different options, and Austin Hardware® works with suppliers to some of the top trailer manufacturers in the U.S., providing top-quality hardware, products, and services. 

Traveling by RV is a great way to see the country and an economical choice that allows travelers to go at their own pace. What's more, is that now more than ever, RV sales are on the rise. You might be considering one as well. Traveling by RV, like any other travel method, has its benefits and things to look out for. That's why both seasoned and new road-trippers need to ensure that safety is at the top of your list before hitting the road. Before your next vacation in your camper or other recreational vehicle, it is good to make sure you have checked off a list of essential things for your trip to be safe and fun. Austin Hardware® has created a checklist for RV travelers to make sure your trip is safe and fun.  

Lock washers work on the fastener's nut side, supplying added tension to an assembly to help prevent nuts and bolts from turning, slipping, and coming loose due to vibration and torque. Thus, their use is common in the transportation industry and on commercial products such as washing machines, where vibration is a significant factor.

You rely on your pick-up truck to haul all sorts of things. Whether it’s for work or play, you use your truck hard and want it to last a long, long time. You also know that the cargo you’re hauling around can scratch, gouge, dent, and ding your pick-up’s bed, reducing its useful life.  

To protect the bed from damage and rust, you can install a bed-liner. The two most common types of bed-liners are drop-in and spray-on.  

Drop-in liners are typically hard plastic or rubber and are “dropped in” to the back of the truck. Unfortunately, unless the drop-in liner is specifically designed for your truck’s make and model, this may not be the best option.  

One of the best parts of partnering with Austin Hardware® is that we are a complete one-stop shop. With Austin Hardware®, you get it all, a convenient solution for both our new and our existing customers. We not only have the parts in stock; our engineering team can work with you to custom design parts for your specific applications. We can also reduce the links in your supply chain with our expert sourcing capabilities, and vendor-managed inventory capabilities. It may sound too good to be true, but for the last 60 years, we’ve learned a thing or two about businesses just like yours. 

E-Clips are a radially assembled tapered section retaining ring. With three points of contact they provide a larger surface for retaining, and yield a higher thrust load capacity than other types of external rings. 

As discussed in a previous post, retaining rings are designed to restrict the movement of mating components and keep them securely in place during operation. By creating a shoulder to retain the assembly, retaining rings are a cost-effective solution, reducing the need for threaded fasteners or machining shoulders on to components. They can be used to replace cotter pins or other traditional fasteners in a number of applications. 

Composed of thin metal, retaining rings are generally either stamped, machined, or made from coiled wire.

They function by being fitted into a machined groove, either on the inside of a bore, or the outside of a shaft. Once in place they reduce vibration, maintain placement of two parts of an assembly, and withstand axial loading.  

Next time you log on to our website to find your hardware needs, you might see a surprise. Austin Hardware® has a new and improved website that has been completely renovated and redesigned with you in mind. You still get access to the same great hardware and service you love, but now our site has been streamlined with easy to find updates that make the user experience more friendly and easier to navigate. Already a loyal Austin Hardware® customer? No worries, If you are an existing Austin customer, your account has been securely transferred to the new site, and your previous order history and important account details are available on the new site. We are excited to launch our new website in our 60th year of business and to provide even better ways to view our diverse line of solutions for your business.