Snap Rivets, Cable Glands, and Grommets What Hardware Do You Need?

Metal zip ties

There are little things in our lives, located discreetly all over, that make it easier. They are not little gnomes, elves, and pixies helping us to find keys and missing socks. More important, actually. They are the little pieces of hardware nestled in every single machinery and piece of furniture and anything constructed. Without those valuable little, innocuous pieces of metal and plastic, things would be constantly falling apart.

We all know about screws and nuts and bolts, those are old news. But what about some other pieces that are designed to keep your life in motion? Do you know about those?

  • Snap Rivets
  • Snap rivets are the second piece of an important combination. They use regular snaps for one end, the other side is the piece that the snap connects to, but it is on the end of a small screw or bolt. This way the material with the snap on it can be attached to any surface that can have a screw embedded into it. Snap rivets are substantially more secure than using rope to try and tie a sign onto a flat surface.

  • Nylon Cable Glands
  • A cable gland is the part that comes up out of a metal box that cords, cables, and wires go into. It is the piece that wraps around them, protecting them from the metal of the box, from bending too much at the point of entry which could damage the contents of the cables, and most of them offer a water-tight seal, protecting the contents of the box. You can find an example of these coming from the big AC unit outside of buildings, or even the power meter attached to your house.

  • Rubber Grommets
  • Grommets can be found all over the place. A grommet can be the tiny metal ring that goes into the canvas of your shoe to prevent the fabric from fraying and protecting the shoelace, to the big metal piece that goes into the fabric of signs offering the same prevention from fraying. It can even be the rubber or plastic rings that go into the hole that is cut into your desk, protecting the computer and monitor wires from the sharp metal or wood that rings the circle that the wires are fed through.

Have you considered what kind of a role those little guys play in your life? It may have never occurred to you to do so until now, but now that it has been brought to your attention, I am sure a light has been brought to your eyes. Now you can see the world with much more appreciation, knowing what is working so hard to help us exist on a daily basis.

12 thoughts on “Snap Rivets, Cable Glands, and Grommets What Hardware Do You Need?


Leave a Reply