Something as simple as a metal connector plate can change your business for the better. If your company does not offer crates, bins, top frames and repaired pallets, you may be losing out on lost opportunities in your market.
A diversified portfolio of products and services helps to hedge against the risks of a narrowly focused customer base. These specialized products and services often enjoy a higher profit margin. Plating is an area frequently ignored by pallet companies, but it could hold hidden profits.
Take a closer look at crates, bins, top frames and other wood products that require use of connector plates. Heavy-duty industrial crates, bins, and some pallets and skids use metal connector plates and metal brackets, straps, and corner clips. They help connect and reinforce the wood components.
Metal connector plates, manufactured in a variety of sizes, typically have teeth that protrude from one face of the plate. Also known as truss plates, nail plates, and pallet plates, these metal connector plates are typically produced from galvanized steel, 18-22 gauge in thickness.
Metal connector plates offer an excellent cost/benefit ratio. They are inexpensive, readily available, and are a very effective means of connecting and reinforcing wood components and preventing or eliminating splitting of wood.
Metal connector plates are applied using hydraulic press equipment that is inexpensive and very simple to use. Top frames, which are used in the glass and canning industries, are one example of a product that typically is manufactured with metal connector plates and hydraulic presses.
Other types of metal connectors used in the manufacture of crates, bins, and similar industrial wood packaging include corner clips, nail plates, and straps. Corner clips typically are angled 90 degrees and are fastened either with screws through pre-punched holes or pneumatic nail guns that nail through the lighter gauge steel and into the wood. Nail plates and straps, which are flat, may or may not be pre-punched with holes and are attached the same way.
Pallet plates for pallet recycling operations often are used to splice two pieces of material together to make one stringer (stringer splicing) or to repair cracked stringers in an existing pallet. Stringer splicing is a very common practice that helps boost the yield of pallet recycling operations by utilizing short pieces of reclaimed material that otherwise would be considered scrap. It requires the use of a splicer, a device that is inexpensive and simple to use. Spliced stringers normally have about 80% of the strength and stiffness of new stringers, but they are more than sufficient for the right pallet design and application.
Repairing a cracked stringer with connector plates is the highest quality method of refurbishing the pallet – other than replacing the stringer, which is much more time-consuming and costly – and keeps the pallet to an A grade, which adds to revenues and profits. Testing by Virginia Tech shows that stringers repaired with metal connector plates are as strong as the original stringer and retain 80% of stiffness. These type of repairs clearly are superior compared to the use of corrugated fasteners.
For more information on the business opportunities explained in this article, visit https://www.prsgroupinc.com/Plates-Fasteners/.
Editor’s Note: Jeff Williams is the president of PRS Group and has more than 28 years of experience in the pallet machinery and automation field. He can be reached at JWilliams@prsgroupinc.com.
