Cold Headed vs. Machined Solid Pins
by Jeff Greenwood, Product Sales Engineer, SPIROL International Corporation
Solid Pins are common fasteners used for aligning, joining and assembling multiple components. Solid Pins are most useful where the clamp load of a bolt is not needed. They are also used for specifi c functions such as locating components, hinges, tamper-resistant designs, etc.
Two common manufacturing methods used to produce Solid Pins are cold heading and machining. Cold heading and machining both produce high-quality, consistent parts. Interestingly, many outside diameter (OD) ground dowels are not actually machined.
It is common to pass cold headed blanks through a secondary grinding operation in order to produce the OD ground dowels.