Fastener veteran, metric legend of the Midwest, Mr. Rich Cavoto of Metric and Multistandard shares his experiences dealing with tariff confusion (1:36:00). AFC Industries CEO Kevin Godin joins newsman Mike McNulty to question the shocking spike in the FLI on the Fastener News Report (48:42). Joanne Bialas celebrates International Fasteners 30 years in business (39:37). Ali Gonzalez and Kerry Tyler of Emerald preview this year’s IFE (18:56). On the Fastener Training Minute, Carmen Vertullo looks at hydrogen embrittlement testing (1:19:21). PLUS: Marco Rodriguez of Cresa explains what to look for in a build to suit commercial lease (15:18). Brian and Eric remember dial-up AOL as they experiment with Chat GPT 5. Run time: 02:08:07
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Listen to the podcast here
Tariffic Times
The Tariffic Times Kick-Iff & AI In Fasteners
I’m coming to you from semi-rural Northeast Ohio as usual, and since he hasn’t been with us in a little while, I buzzed over to the FCH data center and made sure that he emerged. He’s here with us now. He’s Brian Musker.
In fully suburban Southwest Chicago.
Yes. Nothing rural about it, but it’s home. Looking forward to seeing you out there. Coming up very soon for the MWFA where I will camp out in your guest bedroom. Looking forward to that, and I hope that Harpo is well-behaved. That’s all I have to say.
I cannot guarantee that.
He does like to squawk while I’m there. He means well. We’re not going to do as much squawking as we could on this one because it’s an episode of Fully Threaded Radio, much like the old days. It’s episode 218. So much to get in, Bri. The big theme is going to be tariffs again. We’ve also got a little hydrogen embrittlement, we’ve got quite a bit of event coverage coming up, or preview, I should say. We’re going to dive right into it. Before we do, I’m just going to say I’m glad that I was able to peel you away from the GPT conversations you’ve been having, or the chatbots. You’ve been using Perplexity and ChatGPT 5 now, isn’t that right?
Yeah, I have. I’m doing a lot of learning and just looking and have had a fair amount of success. I think that we’re still a ways away from AI taking over the world. I think it’s not quite ready to write its own programs just yet, though it’s pretty good.
AI isn’t quite ready to write its own programs yet — but it’s getting pretty good. Share on XYou’re using ChatGPT and Perplexity right now to do what? Code optimization? Is that mainly your focus?
No, what I’m doing is I’m switching some of our longstanding and very important programs over to the new latest versions of Spring Java to drag it into the modern world and it’s taking a fully working thing and I guess make it work the same way in the more modern structure. That’s all. There’s a lot of changes to it. The fact that it can even do it at all, I think, is a miracle. It’s just not quite miraculous enough for you to take it and make it a fully working program.
ChatGPT 5 has been out. We both watched the big open AI shindig that they did. Sam Altman was touting this thing and really focused on the programming capabilities, how strong it is and everything. Your initial review is, what, like C-plus? Not the programming language grade.
No. I suppose in terms of what we could have done two years ago, B, but it’s not reliable enough or creative enough to take large codes and just convert them over to something else.
We’re also jaded now. What it actually does do is just absolutely astounding. It’s mind blowing. It’s astonishing, but it has to be perfect, really, for us to use it. I don’t think it’s quite knocking on the AGI door like Altman seems to be saying, but it definitely is very powerful.
No, it is absolutely not. However, we will end up with a much more modernized set of software as a result of it. It just requires a bit of care. A lot of care. Ten or twenty years ago, you couldn’t even dream of anything that could do that.
If you’re asking yourself what does this have to do with fasteners, we say frequently, it’s predominantly fastener-related, folks. I’ll also say that right around the corner, we’ve got the International Fastener Expo and we’re going to kick this episode off with a conversation with Kerry Tyler and Ali Gonzalez of Emerald. They’re the producers of the Vegas show, as we’re going to continue calling it for the 2025 edition.
They’ve got quite a lineup of conference sessions and breakout sessions that deal with AI-related topics. If this is your interest area and it should be pretty much everybody’s at this point, they’re not going to disappoint, we’ll cover that, plus everything else that’s coming your way out at Mandalay Bay coming up in mid-September 2025.
Think about if one of these agents can help you write a program, maybe it can help you schedule invoices and manage your mail and all sorts of things.
Lots of that stuff is coming online. They’ll be talking about it at the International Fastener Expo and it’ll be on this show as well. We can’t avoid it, folks. We also can’t avoid, very sadly, the tariff situation and the Fastener Distributor Index showed the July numbers really going sideways again this time in a northerly direction. A lot of people have a smile on their face, but it’s also been a little confusing,
We can’t ignore the tariff situation — it’s still pushing the Fastener Distributor Index in unpredictable directions. Share on XFortunately, AFC Industries CEO, Kevin Godin, joins Mike McNulty on the Fastener News Report. They’re going to dissect all that. I’m very glad that it was Kevin as guest analyst, Brian, because I tell you, it’s a real head scratcher and we need a big brain to look at it. They do a very nice job. That’s the Fastener News Report. Also, Mike McNulty will do his own warmup of the Vegas show. We give that double duty on this episode.
Leading into the Fastener News report, we’ll talk to our old friend Joanne Bialas with International Fasteners. Take a look at the Link Magazine that is still on the streets. That’s the summer issue. You’ll see the story in there announcing International Fastener’s 30-year anniversary. We want to give her a shout out. She warms up Mike and Kevin.
The feature segment on the show is a conversation with MWFA Hall of Famer, Big Daddy, Rich Cavoto of Metric and Multistandard. It’s been a while since we sat down with him for a feature. We got him on this one. He’s looking over his shoulder, Bri. He’s spending a lot of time out there on the golf course these days in the pickleball court when he can, but he’s still busting it out. He, as you would imagine, has a few things to say about the current tariff situation too. Rich Cavoto on our feature.
On the Fastener Training Minute, Carmen Vertullo will serve up our monthly quota of hydrogen embrittlement content as he compares HE testing to stress durability testing. A lot of overlap there, folks. Do you know the difference? Carmen will straighten all that out for you on the Fastener Training Minute.
I’m surprised it took you so long to get to another episode about hydrogen embrittlement, actually.
So much to cover, Brian. Maybe we should start doing two Fastener Training Minutes per episode. A lot of people tune in just for those. There’s so much on this one, including yet another mini segment that we’re introducing this time. A lot of you know Marco Rodriguez who appears quarterly on the Fastener News Report, but this time representing Cresa Expert Real Estate Advisory. We’re going to drop in a mini segment with Marco and he’s going to talk about the ins and outs of Build to Suit. A lot of people who are putting their warehousing operations in leased facilities have to think very carefully about all this. Cresa is a company that can help you to think about it. Marco will show you why that is.
It’s a very full episode, Bri, and we have an extremely full episode of partners for it as well. Very happy to say that we’ve had some longstanding sponsors, as regular readers know, and we’re very fortunate that the roster is expanding. People feel the energy and they’re jumping on. Very awesome. It’s a wonderful honor. Thank you so much.
Shouting them out. The title sponsors of Fully Threaded Radio are Star Stainless. Right off the shelf, it’s Star. Goebel Fasteners, quality the first time. Go Goebel. Brighton Best International, tested, tried, true, Brighton Best. Fully Threaded Radio is also sponsored by Buckeye Fasteners, BTM Manufacturing, Cresa Expert Real Estate Advisory, Eurolink Fastener Supply Service, Endries International, J. Lanfranco, Fastener Technology International, MW Components, The International Fastener Expo, Solution Industries, Volt Industrial Plastics, and Wurth Industry USA.
We’re very lucky to have such a longstanding group of friends and supporters. If you’re thinking of fasteners, make sure you think of them first.
Let them know that you appreciate it when you see them at MWFA FSTNR Week coming right up and The International Fastener Expo in September 2025. It means a lot. Let us know what you think of the show. The email address is FTR@FullyThreaded.com. I’ll point out again, on our last episode, we had Kara Bosse with MW Components, newer sponsor of the program. This time we’re also adding on Endries International and Cresa as formal sponsors.
When you think of fasteners, think of the people behind them — and show your appreciation. Share on XWe’re building out the platform. You’re going to see some of that surfacing fairly soon to support everybody. As we go, we just want to say once again how much we appreciate it. Bri, as I said, I had to drag you pretty much out of the data center because you’re fixed now to your workstation even more than you used to be while you’re addicted to this GPT. It makes me think back to the early days, like in the ‘90s when AOL came out and you had dial up and it was the first time that you “get on” the internet from your home office. Remember those days?
I absolutely do. I can remember you and I in the early days of video, testing out the one single thing that could transmit a video signal. It came from Carnegie Mellon University. Was it CU-seeme? Something like that.
Yeah. It was pretty primitive. Just a little postage stamp. It was all choppy and it was coming over a 14.4 modem. Compared to what there is now, nobody would have the patience for it. It was exciting at the time and it led to many several hundred dollars phone bills.
Right, and many broken calls and fractured pictures and all sorts of things. That was many years ago.
This is more like 1994, ‘95.
This was dial up modems only.
I was reminded of all that because I saw a headline come out from CNBC and it announced a weird headline as anything else these days. AOL ditching, dialup service. A relic of the internet in the ‘90s. Did you even imagine that it was still out there? I guess so. Who was still using dialup for AOL in 2025?
I don’t know, but I suppose if you live on a farm in the middle of Nebraska or somewhere. What else can you do?
Starlink?
Yeah, you’re right. This is farmers. They’re more conservative than the fastener industry.
Even the Amish out here in semi-rural Northeast Ohio all have iPhones. There’s 5G towers looking over the corn fields. What a world. It is an amazing world. We’re going to take a look at a slice of it on this episode. It’s Fully Threaded Radio. It’s Brian and Eric ride again. We appreciate you being here. We’re looking forward to seeing you in Chicago and in Vegas. For now, we’re going to cut and Marco Rodriguez will jam that in. We’ll be back with Kerry and Ali.
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Marco Rodriguez: Building Your Future With Build-To-Suit Real Estate
This is Marco Rodriguez with Cresa back with your real estate update. I gave a presentation to a large public company and the topic of build to suit came up. It occurred to me that many Fully Threaded Radio audience might not be familiar with the concept. I decided to cover this topic. Most companies, especially industrial distributors, choose to lease their buildings rather than own them.
Why? Primarily because their capital is better invested in core business functions like inventory and personnel, which typically yield much higher returns than owning real estate. Within the world of renters, the vast majority find an existing building, negotiate a deal with the landlord, sign a lease, which is usually five years or longer. However, there are times when an existing building just doesn’t cut it.
Perhaps you are in a smaller market with limited building inventory, or your company has very specific requirements that are hard to find in a preexisting space. This is more common for manufacturers who need things like heavy power and perhaps extra ceiling height. This is where a build to suit can come in. It’s a customized solution where a developer constructs a building specifically for your needs.
Think of it like this. If Starbucks or Chick-fil-A wants a new store, or if a company like Amazon or Tesla need a highly specialized industrial facility, they just choose to go the build to suit route. The biggest advantage for a tenant is getting a brand-new building in their ideal location perfectly suited to their operations.
We’re talking the exact number of dock doors, the right amount of office space, break rooms, bathrooms, labs, and everything else they need to optimize with their workflow. Of course, this level of customization comes with a trade-off. Landlords typically require longer lease terms. The larger the investment they make in the building, the longer the commitment they expect.
Ten-year leases are common for build to suits, although you might see some as short as 5 or as long as 20. While the principle of build to suit is straightforward, the devil is definitely in the details. Beyond just understanding of fair market rent, it’s crucial to thoroughly understand and negotiate critical elements like construction timelines, finish specifications and ongoing maintenance responsibilities like who’s responsible for the roof, who’s responsible for the walls, etc. An expert advisor will negotiate the lease and help manage all these moving parts.
Beyond the basics, there are generally two types of developers in the build to suit world. Those who plan to hold the property or the long-term rental income and investment firms that will sell the property with a tenant to an investor who is banking on the stable 10-to-20-year income stream. Here’s a key insight. A property with a secure recurring cashflow is worth much more than the building itself and this creates a significant profit potential for that developer.
A property with secure, recurring cash flow is worth much more than the building itself. This creates significant profit potential for the developer. Share on XA little-known secret is tenants can negotiate a profit-sharing agreement in their leases. This innovative strategy allows tenants to actually benefit from the future sale of their building. You’d ask, “Why would a developer share that profit?” It’s because the tenant is the one adding the value to the building. It can be a sizable bonus for companies that are simply focused on operating their business day to day and turn their long-term commitment into a huge financial upside. If you’d like to learn more about build to suits or have any general industrial real estate questions, you can always find me on LinkedIn. I’m Marco Rodriguez with Cresa. I’ll be back soon with our regular quarterly real estate update.
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Ali Gonzalez And Kerry Tyler: Unveiling The International Fastener Expo 2025
It’s August and that means that the Vegas show is right around the corner. The International Fastener Expo. In other words, already. It’s an exciting time for the fastener industry. Most of us regard it as the Super Bowl. It’s right around the corner. I’m looking forward to it. I got my booth. It’ll be ready, don’t worry. We got the Vegemite on order. With me now to discuss a little bit of this, lay it all out for us, I got two people who know quite a bit about it. Ali Gonzalez is an account executive over there. She’s working with you guys, getting you all set up with your booze. Kerry Tyler is the show director that many of you have met. Hopefully you get to know her a little bit right now. Ali, Kerry, welcome to the show.
Thank you, Eric.
Thanks, Eric. Great to be here with you.
Yeah, it’s great to talk to you guys, finally and it’s a 2 for 1, so I do not mind that one bit. Before we get into the show, I have to ask you, Ali, because while we were setting all this up, you said, “I am very ready to do this with you, but I want you to know I’ve only been on one podcast and it happened to be in the wellness industry.” You said wellness and art history. That’s a weird combo, but wellness, you caught my ear. Come on. What was that all about?
Yeah, so wellness comes from my roots. For those who don’t know, I live in Miami, Florida. Big fitness, wellness, mind, body, soul scene here. I practice yoga and Pilates. I am very big into to the wellness industry here. Also, art history just comes from my love of art and culture. Funny how I ended up in the fastener industry, but here I am. I like to piece and connect different modalities together. I love to form community. It’s really nice that I can work with different types of exhibitors from around the world and bring them all together for the lovely purpose of selling fasteners at IFE. Very excited to be here, Eric, and thanks for that wonderful introduction.
Given all that, I’m sure you’re aware that we have a big event coming up ahead of IF and that is the Tough Mudder race. I don’t know if you’re going to be out in Chicago for FSTNR week. You probably will be. Did anybody try and recruit you for this race?
I saw so many posts on LinkedIn and I’ve a lot of people have mentioned it. I’m going to be all things IFE hands-on deck for our show. I don’t know that I will make it, but I’ll be cheering on in spirit all of our exhibitors from my desk in Miami while I’m getting everybody ready for the show coming up in September.
I’m going to ask you to give me one training tip for everybody that’s reading who’s on the team? There’s a lot of us this year. Meanwhile, Kerry, welcome to you as well. I don’t know that you have visited with us on the show. You’re running the whole show over there. What’s your overall take on this year’s event? What’s the energy like from your perspective?
Yeah, it’s great to be here. Really excited to be a part of IFE. I have been in trade shows for quite some time now, but very new to the fastener world. Being able to attend some recent NFDA meetings, fastener fair, some industry events has really opened my eyes to the fastener world and I couldn’t be more excited to be in Vegas to be running this great show and to welcome thousands of attendees and our great exhibitors and sponsors. It’s just such a great community.
I can say, observing what you’ve been doing so far, you’ve really done everything you can that I could imagine to immerse yourself in this, to introduce yourself to the right people. You’re doing some very interesting things behind the scenes, so I was very relieved to see that happening. Thanks for being here. Alright, so Ali, getting back with you. There’s a lot of folks on this team who may or may not really be ready for it. If you had one wellness overall tip to give to people who’ve been sitting in there at their desk for the last nine months and now they have to get out there and do a 5K in the mud, is there any one thing that you could say overall from a wellness perspective they should be thinking about?
Yeah, I’m all about mind-body prep, so I love visualization. I think that’s a great technique, especially if you’re trying to visualize the race. I know a lot of the team members are very competitive and it’s good also to check in with yourself. I would say spend a few minutes each day, a few days up until the event, picturing yourself running, crossing the finish line.
I think mental rehearsals really reduce anxiety and they boost competence. I like to practice mantras. Just repeat mantras. If that’s something that you are aligned with and you’re called to do, just say, “I’m strong, I’m ready. I got this.” It really does help boost your confidence to finish the race and finish it well.
I love that. I like your style.
Yeah, I do too. That’s great.
Yeah, and that goes for many things. I’ll be thinking about that. I’ll be visualizing while I’m toasting my fireball before we start the race. I don’t know if that goes over in most wellness communities, but it does in the mudder community. Let’s dive into this show because it is coming right around the corner. International Fastener Expo. It’s happening in Las Vegas at Mandalay Bay. The dates this year, well, on the website it says conference is 15th through the 17th and the expo, 16th through the 17th. Ali, why don’t I hand off to you? Why don’t you run this down, tee off on what you have in store for us this year with International Fastener Expo.
Yeah, so thanks Eric. Our team is gearing up for an incredible show this year. We have three full days of networking, discovering new products, soaking in the high energy of the faster industry. We kick things off on that Monday morning September 15th with our legendary golf tournament, which starts at 7:45 AM.
In 2025, Brikksen’s adding a fun little twist to our golf tournament. They’re hosting their own marshmallow golf activation. It’s a great way to start off the week on a high note. Look for Brikksen if you’re registered for the golf tournament. They have exciting prizes. I don’t know if you know what the marshmallow golf activation is. You’re not so much of a golf person, but essentially, I didn’t know about this, it’s whoever can puck the marshmallow the farthest wins a prize, basically.
It’s a golfer thing, I guess.
It’s a golfer thing but it’s a very cool activation and a great way to network among the golfers. It’s going to be a great conversation piece amongst the golfers. Also, so on that Monday, we host the FDI workshop with Carmen Vertullo, our past recipient and award winner. He’s going to be spearheading that workshop with the team in FDI from 8:30 to 4:30. It’s going to be at the Shell Seekers AB, so it’s a full day hands-on workshop that’s really an industry favorite for all our fastener pros looking to sharpen their skills.
That’s Monday. We also have our first ever conference day on that Monday as well. We have great engaging sessions on AI, which is a huge critical issue within the industry. We also have topics covering how to navigate the fluctuations relating to tariffs. That’s a huge buzzword right now and a challenge point also that we see happening.
Yeah, it’s more than a buzzword, I guarantee you.
It’s completely transforming how people do business. We really have a great conference, speakers and sessions really highlighting topics that a lot of people have been wanting to hear about.
They’re very relevant, for sure. Let me ask you this. How does that plug into the show? If you’re registered for the show? Do you get in or is there a separate entry to that? How does it work?
Each session is $39, so pre-registration is required. Be sure to secure your spot early because they are registering quickly.
Those are both happening on?
That’s Monday, September 15th. One of the highlights is how AI is transforming the fastener industry. That’s one of the topics. That’s featuring a panel of executives from Hawk Search and Bridgeline. It’s a must attend for anybody curious about AI and how it’s shaping the space, so that’s one of our highlighted conference sessions. Another one that we see a lot, especially recently in the industry, is the state of the fastener M&A market. We’re seeing a lot of mergers and acquisitions across the industry.
I’d like to go to this one.
It’s called Fasteners and Flux. Yeah, make sure you register for that one. It’s going to be a really timely session for what’s going on right now. Be sure to register.
That’s Kevin Godin with AFC, by the way, folks.
Yes. We also have our keynote session. That’s Tuesday, September 16th from 8:30 to 9:30. This one is titled Weathering the Trade Tariff Tempus. It’s just a big topic with big impact and a lot of people did request tariff related topics. We brought in our keynote who really has a lot of experience speaking on that. We’re excited.
We have a more technically inclined session. Make sure you also register for Keeping It Together, no pun intended. That is with Doug Hirsch. He’s of Goldilocks Ratchet Fastener. He’s a new exhibitor with us. He’s an acclaimed inventor and a scholar. His topic’s going to be regarding the increasing demand for vibration resistant fasteners. Make sure to also register for his session as well.
You’ve really built out the conference portion of the show. That’s all exciting. We move on to the show itself.
There’s more. After a full day of golf and workshops and everything that you don’t want to miss, we’re turning up the energy at the IFE Welcome party, which is a favorite. It’s going to be on that Monday, September 15th from 6:00 to 8:00 PM at the daylight pool. Perfect way to kick off the show. Great vibes, as you know. Great networking, fun, relaxed setting to connect with fellow attendees before the expo floor opens. That will be at the daylight pool. We’re really excited for that. That’s usually a great kickoff to the show week.
Okay, I’ll be there. Kerry, are you writing all this down?
I’m writing all this down and putting it on my calendar. I will be there with bells on. I can’t wait. I’ve heard so much about everything that Ali has talked about, so to be able to experience it, it is going to be awesome.
I know you’ve all been working behind the scenes as a team to get this in place. Now, get to the show. We’ve got the best people really on the planet to give us some an idea about the makeup of this year’s floor. It’s fluctuated a lot over the years. How do you describe this year?
It’s obviously an international show. We do have our source global. You’ll see on the floor plan. We have pavilions set aside for our wonderful international pavilions. This year, we do have Turkey, Taiwan, China, India I believe as well that will be participating. Also, we have our machinery and tooling section which we like to give their own area because they’re bringing in some great heavy duty machinery to show off.
We’re very excited and I know Kerry can speak to this as well. We have a new activation area called the Demo Zone this year. We have area dedicated just to live demonstrations. If you look on the floor plan, it’s on the right-hand corner near our machinery and tooling section. We’ll have several exhibitors that are just doing high level demonstrations with their products. Really cool area if you want to get some exciting over the counter demonstration. That’s something new this year.
I hope it’s really noisy. One idea that I always had about the show that would make it a little more exciting is just like banging noises, like cold heading machinery going in the background or something. If you walk into any fastener production facility and that’s what you hear, just this clanking. The crowd noise is exciting, don’t get me wrong. I hope it’s a very noisy thing that you guys have.
Ali’s done a great job selling out almost the whole entire machinery and tooling area. That’s right where the demo zone is, so I’m pretty sure you’ll get your wish with all of those background sounds.
It sounds like a full show. How are booth sales, if I can ask you?
I just work with our domestic exhibitors and we are pretty much almost sold out. I have just a few booths left, so if you want to get in there you can. Just let me know as soon as possible because we just have a handful of 10 by 10s and a few demo areas. We just obviously launched the demo area, so we are selling out quickly. There is available space if you want to jump in and try a tabletop this year. As long as you have a demo product that’s ready to be shown, we’re happy to highlight that.
How about sponsorship opportunities? I know it’s getting a little late in the game. Some of our readers, though, tend to like to come to the party after it’s already been set. Anything they can jump in on if they so desire?
This year, you’ll see a lot more customized experiences, so to speak with some of our exhibitors. We really worked hand in hand and Kerry has had a big part in that, of working directly with some of our exhibitors to have activations this year. Crossroad Distributor Source has their 21st birthday celebration that you can find on the floor plan. You’ll see where that’s located. They have a whole setup and we’re really excited. We’ve been working with their team to highlight them on the first day of the event and have the attendees celebrate their 21st birthday with them at IFE.
We’ve had a couple other sponsorships that we’ve worked like the Brikksen marshmallow tournament and they have a cocktail called the Bricks and Blend at the welcome party. However, as we gear closer to the show, most of our onsite signage, obviously, the deadline has pretty much passed for that. Right now, we’re offering a lot of digital offerings like leaderboards on the website.
Targeted e-blasts is a great way to get your messaging to attendees prior to the event. What that is essentially is, for a nominal fee, we send out email on behalf of IFE to the attendees with your HTML, and then you can say anything from visit our booth to show off a new product, anything like that to really get people’s eyes and ears perked up about your company pre-IFE.
Let’s recap. The International Fastener Expo is coming up. The date September 15th through the 17th. That’s happening at Mandalay Bay. We didn’t mention the website yet, so I’ll do it now. FastenerShows.com. I also want to mention one thing that we haven’t gotten to yet, and that is that on Wednesday, the 17th, Jackpot Marketing with Rosa Hearn and Joe Shoemaker. That’s going to be a big one. I want to be there. It’s only $59 and includes breakfast. That’s like a 2 for 1. Actually, it’s a 3 for 1 because Joe and Rosa know their stuff. Breakfast is the bonus. It’s going to be a great event.
Yeah, the Jackpot Marketing Workshop is going to be from 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM in the Coral ABC.
Ali, I’m visualizing it all now.
You’re using the wellness technique. That’s great.
I can tell Kerry is too. Ladies, thank you for being here. I look forward to seeing you. See you in Chicago shortly, but then of course the big event is happening in Las Vegas, International Fastener Expo, the Vegas show, at least for the time being.
Thank you, Eric.
Thanks for being here, guys.
Thank you. We’ll see you in Vegas.
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Joanne Bialas: Celebrating 30 Years Of Daggers Brand And FIFA’s Resurgence
It’s news segment time. This time, Mike McNulty will be joined by AFC CEO, Kevin Godin. They’ll be looking at the FDI numbers and a whole lot more. That’s a lot of three letter. I don’t know if those are acronyms or not, but a lot of that. In the meantime, I was looking at the latest Link magazine. This is the triumphant summer issue on the cover, the 100-year anniversary of Brighton Best. We talked about that a little bit in the last episode. Page 30, there’s a story there that inspired me to pick up the phone and call. She’s with us now. Joanne Bialas.
Eric, how have you been?
Never better. Very happy to see this issue and the 30th anniversary of International Fasteners and the Daggerz brand, which you seem to use interchangeably, but there you are with your team and before and after is there. I tell you, it makes me just as happy to see that as the cover. Thanks for being here.
Thanks for having me. This is a great little shout out for us. While 30 years pales in comparison to BBI’s 100-year milestone, they’ve been just such a powerhouse for so many years. It didn’t surprise me to see 100 years for them on the cover. Thirty years still means a whole lot to us. We like to think we haven’t changed that much. Maybe a few more wrinkles, but that’s about it. What are you going to do?
I mentioned the before and after photo, and I got to say that the team, it’s the same trio there and maybe you can shout yourselves out there for me. You guys looked great back then. You look great still, and it’s nice to see the team. I know you’ve done a lot of expansion. Walk us through International Fasteners and Daggerz, and I know you’re based in Florida still, but you’re all the way out on the West Coast now. You’re doing some exciting things. Lay it out for us, Joanne.
Absolutely. Obviously, Pete and Tina Carlino have been our founders and co-owners and have really been behind the wheel of the bus and I was able to join them very early on and grow with them. I will shout out to all the people that we’ve acquired along the way that have made the success. As we’ve gone from our one location in Tampa, Florida, which is still our corporate headquarters we now have a total of 8 and 5 of them are actual own locations and then we have 3 satellites.
We’ve been able to pick up some other industry veterans who have put in significant time. We have a former vice president of sales for Compass. I don’t know if you remember Compass, but Connie Swatek. Of course, we’ve acquired Law Winchester, who’s 30-year veteran of the industry, national sales manager in his own rights. He’s heading up the West Coast for us.
We just continue to grow and the people and our culture come together and have helped us really stay true to what we’ve tried to do, which was not only establish but grow our Daggerz brand fasteners, but provide the service and quality that is second to none. We still do that 30 years later, and we’re going to keep doing that.
In this story, you mentioned the personal touch, and every time someone calls, they’re going to get a live person, or at least you’ll call right back. Let’s put it that way. Let’s be real. I tell you, I have to remember the first time you and I got acquainted, it was a few years back now, and that was when you were involved in SEFA, the Southeastern Fastener Association. I was impressed at the time. I remember with how you were reviving that organization. I say this, Joanne, because it takes that commitment and that personal charisma to do that thing to pull it off. I know you bring that also to International Fasteners, but I always admired you for doing that. That’s how we first started talking.
Thank you for that. Also, SEFA had a monumental celebration this year as well. Celebrating their 50 years in the industry. It was great that I got to be a part of that and meet up with a bunch of former presidents and it was a great time. I love a good challenge. Sales has always been challenging, management is challenging.
I found when I got involved with SEFA originally and they were in trouble that I had some talent there that perhaps I could throw that in. With my passion for the industry, I think that really helped get SEFA back on their feet. Of course, the biggest decision that was made while we were trying to regroup was bringing on Nancy Rich, another industry veteran to take over and she’s done such a fabulous job to get us to the 50-year mark.
Yeah. Now a lot of folks reading might not realize that Nancy Rich, of course, is so well known for being the longtime executive director of the Midwest Fastener Association, and she retired from that position after many years. I don’t know how many, perhaps you do. I don’t know how many people know that she’s still doing SEFA.
Yeah, I think she still has a soft spot for us. She really did come in right when we needed someone most to carry it on. You’re from the Midwest, you get it. Who doesn’t want to come down to the southeast in the wintertime for a meeting or two?
I guess that makes sense. I hadn’t thought of it that way, but it all connects.
Nancy is working out her exit strategy so she can spend more time with the family, I’m sure. She was here and so she got to be a part of the celebration as well. Great fun.
That is such a cool connection. This industry is very filled with them. Right now, I’ll mention another connection we’ve gotten. That’s to our partners. The title sponsors of Fully Threaded Radio are Star Stainless, Goebel Fasteners and Brighton Best International. Of course, the Fastener News Reports brought to us by Volt Industrial Plastics, another proud SEFA member.
One of the other things that I remember early on in our conversations, Joanne, was you were always really tuned into tech and kept a beat on the pulse of what was happening. I got to ask you, what are you thinking? What are you seeing out there in the AI world these days? How’s it going to impact the fastener world?
I don’t know that I’m qualified to speak to the fastener industry specifically, but I do see it aiding the industry in business ways for certain, and I’m sure everyone is embracing it more and more. Just a simple AI generated response to a quick text or helping reword the email that you’re trying to say something and they’re struggling. We’ve got all these little helpful pieces that I think we are utilizing already and maybe don’t even realize it, but overall, I don’t believe artificial intelligence is going to take over the industry, but I think it will help in certain segments.
Are you seeing it in distribution specifically anywhere these days or is it still something that everyone’s just talking about?
From where I’m sitting so far, I have not seen anything specific to report.
That’s very interesting. No reason to feel bad about that. I think a lot of people share your view. We’re just keeping our eyes open and of course, we’re dipping our toe in wherever we can and a lot of it is that office productivity stuff that you referenced, but I think we’re in pretty good company there, Joanne.
You always have to move forward. Work smarter, not harder. This is definitely baby steps for some of us and probably more than that for others. I believe in technology. I still do.
I’m not surprised to hear that. Alright, well Joanne Bialas, International Fasteners your Daggerz brand, congratulations again on your 30 years. Check out page 30. I wonder if Leo did that on purpose, put you on page 30 for your 30th anniversary.
I was hoping they did. It’s very cool.
Yeah, it just occurred to me, I guess I need a little AI to help me out with stuff like this. Okay, so congratulations again and appreciate you being here.
Thank you so much. I appreciate the shout out. It’s always great to talk to you.
With the news coming up next, you know what time it is now.
It is. Now with news about screws that you can use. Here’s Mike McNulty.
Mike McNulty: Fastener News Report – Industry Insights & Headlines
Thanks, Joanne. This is Mike McNulty from Fastener Technology International Magazine, bringing you the Fastener News Report, which is sponsored by Bolt Industrial Plastics, makers of the world’s finest plastic fasteners. It is only August, but a large part of America is suddenly fascinated by the 2025 season of the Cleveland Bronze Professional Football Team. Utopian economic schemes are fully bipartisan now, but I am still focused on fasteners and ready to deliver ‘s Fastener News Report.
In this episode, Kevin Godin, CEO of AFC Industries, joins us to reveal the latest results of the Fastener Distributor Index, also known as the FDI. Also, in this episode, we have our top story from Setko Fasteners and Distribution plus Newsmaker headlines from Birmingham Fastener, Packer Fastener, Eco Bolt, Optimist Solutions, AFC, LindFast Solutions Group, the women in the FASTER INDUSTRY, and more. On the back page report, we’re going to talk about the Las Vegas Fastener Show.
Kevin Godin: FDI Deep Dive – Tariffs, Trends, And College Football Loyalties
The seasonally adjusted fastener distributor index for July 2025 rose to 53.1 after posting a solid 52.0 reading in June, seasonally adjusted. This was the fifth reading above 50 out of the last six and the highest result of 2025. The forward-looking indicator, also known as the FLI exploded last month to 57.3, recovering from a lackluster 47.4 in June, also the highest level of the year and only the second month out of the last seven of being above 50.
Fastener Distributor Index data is collected and analyzed by the FCH Sourcing Network and Baird. The FDI seeks to identify demand pricing and outlook trends within the American fastener distribution industry. To get some insight on these results, we’re going to talk to AFC industry CEO, Kevin Godin. Kevin, thanks for joining us on the Fastener News Report.
Thanks for having me. It’s always a pleasure to be with you.
It’s good to have you back. It’s been a while. I think about a couple of years, but looking forward to hearing your take on the latest FDI results. What do you think?
Yeah, it was certainly an interesting reading, especially the FLI, which was surprising to me, but probably a lot we could dig into here.
Yeah, that definitely was the surprising number for me as well. It’s so high. I didn’t look to see what was the highest ever, but it’s definitely the highest of the last year. Let’s dive into some of the numbers we had sales employment deliveries and all pricing rows while respondent and customer inventories dropped to their lowest point of the year. That’s probably that combination of all that led to the good results. What do you think there?
Yeah, for sure. One of the things that’s difficult right now is I think there’s a lot of noise in the numbers. What I mean by that is with tariffs and everything, the numbers aren’t necessarily only going to reflect underlying demand or economic trends. There’s positioning in there. For example, sales are up. What percentage of that is price lift? If you look at the pricing, people in passing on pricing, customer inventories, normally, that would be a real positive sign that people are burning through inventory and it needs to be replaced.
There’s a lot of noise in the numbers right now. Tariffs and other factors mean the data doesn’t always reflect true underlying demand. Share on XThat also, though, can be an indication that customers are burning through backlog and that they’ve shortened their position because they have less confidence. There could be some noise in here and I think it’s a little too early to tell for certain, but it’s always good to see a couple of months, particularly at the FDI level, that people are stringing together a couple of months that are positive. I think in terms of the FLI, I’m probably a little more skeptical about that number for several reasons.
Yeah, it really went up. Let’s go. You mentioned the inventories and we had respondent inventory has dropped a 57.4 down from 62.5, and like I said, that’s by far the lowest recorded number in the last year, even going back to the fall. The customer inventory has dropped a 38.2, a really low level. As you said, it could be they’re selling stuff. They’re reducing their inventory or maybe they’re not replenishing it as quick. It’s in general a good move, I think, but it could be disguising something else going on.
Yeah, that’s right. It’s typically a good sign, but again, my approach to these things is any one number in isolation, it’s going to have less explanatory power than when you look at it in relation to the other numbers, that’s a pretty substantial move there. I don’t know if there’s some bull whip effect in there. That’s a pretty big drop. I’m going to want to wait and see what happens with that next month.
Yeah. In the back of my mind, like you mentioned it too, is that with these tariffs and everything, are sales going up or they just, the numbers are bigger because the tariffs are on there.
You’re hoping to get objective data, objective results, but also relative performance to what people expect always plays a part in that. It looks like maybe things are on a relative basis better, but when you look at particularly the FLI, when you’re looking at the relationship, I think while both of these numbers look really strong and upbeat, if you look at, for example, the ISM, the PMI, it’s going the other direction.
I think that’s probably a more accurate view right now as to the general economic conditions and I think that would be because it correlates better to some other things. For example, this is the fifth straight month of contraction in manufacturing and all six of the largest manufacturing segments were in decline in July.
As we have tariffs and uncertainty flowing through, there may be several distributors who are positioned very well to take advantage of some of that better position than others. Maybe they’ve had some really good months. We’ll have to see what that looks like as it plays out more broadly. I think those distributors, at least in my conversations with folks, the people who have a broader exposure, maybe geographically or in terms of end markets are less optimistic than the ones who might have a in the right spot position.
Let’s face it, even in that case, we shouldn’t be managing our businesses like index funds. You should be able to go out, win business and grow, but in terms of what this is really telling us, I just think it’s going to take a few months before the noise starts to filter out. It’s good. There are some things here that may be positive, but I’m taking more of a wait and see attitude on it.
You mentioned the ISM PMI, it dropped to 48.0 after posting 49 last month, and that’s the lowest level in 2025.
When you start to see different indicators that should be moving together, diverging that usually indicates that there’s asymmetry in the information somewhere. That always makes me less confident. When everything’s pointing the same direction, you can go, “This is pretty much what everybody’s seeing,” but for the fastener industry, which is tightly connected, obviously to manufacturing, to be diverging. It could be timing, it could be a lot of things. That’s why I was pointing to the components that make it up.
Low customer inventories could be an indication of strong future orders. It could also reflect end user caution. The employment readings look good, but they’re in line with norms. They’re not expanding aggressively. You look at those things and you go, “Is there anything here that gives us real clarity as to why the fastener respondents would be moving in a different direction?” That’s not clear, at least to me at this point.
That’s the question we can’t really answer. The other number we have the six-month outlook, still pretty fairly bullish. We had 38% of the people expecting business to be better down the road, 47% the same, and only 15% being lower. If you take the two front ones, that’s a little bit better result than it was last month. Last month we had 41%, 38%, and 22%. The big changes that people who think it’s going to be worse decreased, but a lot more people are in the middle reading, almost half are in the middle reading thinking things will be the same. Is that a good thing?
It should be a good thing. My thought on that is I think people were thinking as we got through some of this tariff things, think dust settles a little bit. There’s certainty. Certainty should be better for us to move forward and people to make decisions. I think there’s some things that have been delayed. Some projects and things that folks are bidding on that are delayed.
If you think about if you’re bidding a package, the customer, it’s taking longer for them to make decisions because what’s the cost basis they’re comparing your quote to? It slowed things down a little bit. This looks pretty good, but one of the questions about it is that’s a sentiment-based thing. Now that we get a little bit further, will that hold? Hopefully it does, but we’ll see.
You mentioned the word sentiment and other people have said on here that the FDI and the FLI is an emotional index sometimes. The question is what’s kicking that emotion, I guess? What happened? More on copper, not just steel. Maybe that’s it.
It’s hard to say. Although fear is a very powerful emotion. When people are heading into uncertainty, they get very cautious. Now, we’ve had a few months where people are, maybe things are looking a little better. They’re a little more optimistic because it’s not as bad as they thought it was, and so they feel a little better.
One of the complicating things about these large regulatory actions is they tend to mask the real demand underneath all of that. You can filter out for that only to some extent. Nobody really can fully tell you right now what the long-term demand impact of all of this trade stuff is going to be. That’s the big question mark that I think is still there.
People are starting to get a handle on their costs. People are starting to get a handle on the short-term book of business in terms of their customers backlog and inventories. What remains to be seen is what will be the impact longer term on the demand for us manufactured goods. I don’t know anybody who has that answer.
As you said earlier, try to win business and grow. Anything else you want to mention on the numbers before we move on to the commentary?
No. It was an interesting set of readings this month.
It caught me by surprise a little bit, especially the forward-looking indicator jumping way up. One final thought I had on the number. If you follow, the stock market has been just exploding in terms of growth over the last few months and these wild swings and then are they moving on into these numbers as well. These big surges and numbers seems out of the ordinary and really nothing fundamental behind them.
That goes to my comment about sentiment. People hear about the stock market, but financial markets move with a different logic than what it manufactures, plant needs or construction site needs. We’ll see.
In a separate industry, we have some stock indexes that we cover in there. They’re just huge. Hugely on the growth. One month to the next 8%, 9%, 10% growth in an index, which you would hope for that in a year. Maybe volatility is the name of the game. Let’s move on to commentary. This time, commentary was mixed, depending on your sourcing or at least this what Baird’s thesis.
If you’re sourcing from US or domestic suppliers, things are pretty good. If you’re more global or more international, maybe not so good. First, we’ll go into these comments, you can jump in and add any of your takes on them. The first one is, “Just like last month, we received an unexpectedly large amount of orders and we pushed them out into the door for a great sales month. I am bullish on USA made parts.”
Yeah, like we said, you could be positioned well to take advantage of what’s happening. Good for that guy. That’s good to know.
As a side note, I’ve noticed USA made parts is definitely increasing and it’s mentioned in marketing materials. Next one, “From what we hear, the American fastener guys are busy while the metric side is a little slower.”
No, that makes sense. Probably in the short term.
Absolutely. Yeah, they’re celebrating a little. The next one is, “Sales were down a bit in July as compared to June, but July was still our second largest sales month in our company’s history.” That’s pretty good. “Tariff uncertainty is still driving prices up while stifling demand.” I think you alluded to that a little bit earlier, things being put on hold.
The next one, it’s the longest comment we have. It says, “Managing inventory by tariff category has practically created an additional position. As OEM, customers ask for detailed breakdowns and inventory pricing by tariff change. Each time our president decides to change them or make a new deal, we find ourselves starting over. Planning is impossible. Sales are up, of course, due to increased tariff pricing, but margins are taking a substantial hit as we share the increased cost with customers to save the relationship and assist them with holding their own product cost increases to a minimum.” There’s a lot there.
I can certainly sympathize with that. There’s just a lot of data that needs to be gathered to justify increases in a lot of cases, or even just your position on inventory or whatever with the customer. That the more it changes, the more you have to redo that work and that that’s, I don’t know, a hidden cost in the businesses that have to deal with those more sophisticated buyers who require that. I think a lot of people are dealing with that.
I don’t have to do that, but it seems to me that would be a nightmare situation at times. Akin to like a regulation or regulatory stranglehold on business, having to add people to figure these things out.
Yeah, I used to get up in the morning and look at what the stocks did. Now you look at what the stocks did and what the tariffs are, so you can reset.
Start over. Make the new price sheet. We got one more comment that says, “Strong signs that the economy is slowing. Also, with regards to your pricing question, it varies by product category as the evil tariff supply. Some stuff has gone up while a lot of other items are only up about 15%.”
I’m not going to comment on the moral status of whether they’re evil or whatever. I think this is something that I’m hearing a lot and we are certainly seeing at AFC that certain product categories obviously are going to be affected more, and certain channels are going to be affected more. It’s a lot of work and we just have to navigate it until the dust settles and we understand what it is.
Hopefully, that will be soon. Hopefully, these positive readings are reflecting something real, although not to be the skeptic, but I think right now, the PMI probably reflects more accurately the broader economic environment. We’ll see if there’s something unique happening with the fastener supply chain that is positioned us to be better than that. I’m not sure, though, how long you can really outperform those broader trends. We’ll see.
I think your take is right. The PMI is more broad in the fastener industry and the time I’ve been in it never really how it performs the rest of the market. There are no right inherent technical advances in fasteners. They’re important, they’re good, they work, but they pretty much follow along with the general economy.
I think we’re probably going to see some softening now, depending on what your customer base is or how you’re positioned. Some people may be in a better position, but in general, I was just really surprised to see that FLI number because it, it doesn’t really connect with most of the other pieces of data that we look at.
It makes for a good segment on the show. Anything else on the FDI before we let you give a chance to tell the readers what’s going on at AFC Industries?
No, I think that was good.
You guys are always busy. What’s new and great going on at AFC?
As you said, we always try to keep moving. We’ve added some capabilities and machine parts and some depth in Europe. We’re continuing to restructure some things around a couple of verticals that we think are going to be important over the next several years. Just a lot of activity here. We’ve got a great team and the business is growing and so we’ve just got to continue to do a good job taking care of our customers and implementing the new business. I think we’ll be in good shape. We’re positioned pretty well, so it’s an exciting time to be here.
You guys usually don’t go along without some news. I think you had a name change with your European branch, the AFC Europe.
Yeah, we had a few different companies that we’d acquired there, and they were really being managed by the same team and working according to the same strategy. We decided to just rebrand that AFC Europe. That communicates to the customers that were local to them, but also the connection to the larger entity.
That make sounds like a good move. As I said, you guys seem like you’re always got something new going on, so keep up the good work there.
We’ll try. Thank you.
We’re recording this almost in the middle of August, and at the end of August, we got college football starting up. I was looking at your LinkedIn and I don’t know if I noticed this last time you were on, but you’ve got degrees from Michigan and Penn State, so I’m wondering where do your loyalties lie?
I like to see Penn State do well, but I’m a Michigan guy. That’s where my undergrad’s from.
That’s usually the first love.
That’s right. Plus, when they give you a diploma at Michigan, they make you sign up for the rest of your life. No, it’s been an interesting few years with them. Some good, some bad, so we’ll see what happens this year, but I’m excited about it and I hope, I hope the Nittany Lions do well too.
I saw they were in the coaches poll, Penn State, I think it’s number 3, and Michigan’s maybe 14, so they’re both in the both in the top 20. We will see what happens. It’s a whole new animal now in college football.
It’s a lot different than it used to be and I’m not sure I like all of those changes, but that’s the way the world works.
I’m not sure I like all the changes either, but I was saying to a couple of friends, I’m like, “I still get excited when college football and pro football roll around. I still enjoy following it and watching it.” It’s good to have you back on the program and we thank you for your insight and expertise in the fastener industry and I look forward to having you on again in the future.
Happy to do so. Appreciate it.
Thanks, Kevin. That was Kevin Godin. He’s the CEO at AFC industries. The FDI number for July 2025 was 53.1 versus 52.0 in June. Visit FDISurvey.com to participate in the process and get a detailed PDF copy of Baird’s Monthly Analysis. Now for today’s top story, Setko Fasteners and Distribution announced that after more than a decade of dedication to the company, Kelly Poholarz has acquired full ownership and now serves as the company’s sole proprietor and CEO.
Kelly has been a cornerstone of the Setko team with over 30 years in the faster industry guiding growth and innovation across a wide range of fastener products. This includes socket, head cap screws, set screws, shoulder bolts, hex and six lobe keys, doll pins, and more. Setko has expanded its special product offering to include items like brass and nylon tip set screws, while also enhancing service capabilities with options such as blanket orders and custom finishes, all reinforcing set Setko’s role as both a domestic and import supplier.
Kelly said, “I am honored to lead Setko into its next chapter. Our unwavering focus on quality custom solutions and personal service has defined us for many years and I’m excited to build on that legacy.” Founded in Hampshire, Illinois, Setko Fasteners has grown into a trusted partner within the industrial fastener sector, serving North American markets with both domestically manufactured and imported products tailored to exact print specifications.
As the sole owner, Kelly is committed to building on Setko strengths in the customized socket products, rapid fulfillment and client-focused supply chain solutions. With Kelly at the helm, Setko Fastener looks forward to continuing its tradition of reliability, innovation, and excellence for existing and future customers across industries.
Kelly continued, “I’m incredibly proud of my team at Setko. Their unwavering commitment to delivering exceptional service ensures that every customer receives a top tier experience. Each member of the Setko family goes above and beyond to guarantee complete satisfaction making customer care one of our highest priorities.” You can see an excellent picture of Kelly on page 160 of the August-September, 2025 issue of FTI Magazine, available online at FastenerTech.com.
Next up is today’s Fastener Newsmaker headlines. In corporate news, Birmingham Fastener launched Zinc Fast Hot Tip Galvanizing Services. Packer Fastener opened a distribution center in Atlanta. DPA buying group moved to larger headquarters. Camcar-Innovations announced a strategic partnership with Mule Technology. EchoBolt debuted new bolt load measuring technology. Nord-Lock expanded into the Brazilian market. GWR Fasteners upgraded production with new equipment.
Motion formed a joint venture with Tagodi Development Corporation. Optimist Solutions expanded with a new UK distribution center. TFC was renamed AFC Europe. CJK Industrial tripled its captive screw production capabilities and Triangle Fastener Corporation, also known as TFC, acquired DB Building Fastener.
In personnel news, LindFast Solutions Group, also known as LSG, appointed Steve Dean as Chief Commercial Officer. Ryan Edwards joined SPAX and TRUFAST as Mass Timber Sales Director for North America. Birgit Seeger was appointed as the future CEO of the NORMA Group. The Women in the Fastener Industry, also known as WIFI, announced Keli Stahl of Brynolf Manufacturing and Jen Kominsky of Hangar Bolt & Stud as winners of the Ann Bisgyer Wolz FTI Scholarship, as well as Adrianne Reynolds of Bossard as the winner of the Edith Cameron IFE Scholarship. You can get details on all of these stories and more in Fastener Technology International Magazine and The Fastener News Report Monthly Newsletter, both available online at FastenerTech.com.
Now let’s turn to the back page to talk about the Las Vegas Fastener Show. Emerald Expositions, the organizer of the International Fastener Expo, also known as IFE or simply the Las Vegas Fastener Show reports that the 2025 staging of the expo is a highly anticipated event for the industry and the largest fastener show in North America.
If you take a look at the IFE 2025 schedule online at FastenerShows.com, as well as the more than twenty pages of preview coverage in the August-September, 2025 issue of Fastener Technology International Magazine FastenerTech.com, then you can easily conclude that the content will live up to or surpass expectations. Scheduled for September 15th to 17th 2025, at Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, the 2025 Expo includes a comprehensive educational program, a diverse show floor with hundreds of exhibitors from all over the world, and lots of great networking and business opportunities.
In addition to the huge exhibit floor, other highlights this year are the IFE Golf Tournament, a full day training provided by the Fastener Training Institute, several industry expert conference sessions and opening keynote speech, a welcome party, the Fastener Hall of Fame and Young Fastener Professional Award Ceremony, after dark networking and event, a two-hour Jackpot Marketing workshop hosted by Rosa Hearn of Brighton Best International and Joe Shoemaker of AFC Industries, the fireside chat lounge and several side events planned separately by many industry suppliers.
In the back or front of many minds, depending on your perspectives, will be the news that after nearly 30 expos dating back to the late 1990s, the IFE show will be leaving Las Vegas for Phoenix, Arizona in 2026. The move is probably bittersweet to many in the industry, including exhibitors, attendees, and show staff members, as many will certainly miss going to fastener shows in Las Vegas.
Industry veterans know that fastener trade shows move around ebb and flow and even go away for good just to be replaced by new ones. I expect that most exhibitors and attendees will continue to go wherever the industry goes. I think that goodness, charm and business opportunities can be found in every city and region in the USA and I’m confident that Phoenix and the fastener industry will be able to do some good work together. In the meantime, let’s just say, Viva Las Vegas. This is Mike McNulty at Fastener Technology International Magazine, bringing you the Fastener News Report. Please send your news, pictures, comments, corrections, or complaints to me at McNulty@FastenerTech.com.
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Carmen Vertullo: Mastering Hydrogen Embrittlement Testing
This is Carmen Vertullo, coming to you with the Fastener Training Minute from the Fastener Training Institute and Carver Labs in beautiful El Cajon, California. Today’s topic, as usual, comes from a question this time it was from a client whom we perform lots of stress durability testing for. That stress durability testing, as you probably know, is a test that we do when we want to detect the presence of hydrogen, which causes hydrogen embrittlement in fasteners.
The question was, “Why does my test report say stress durability test? I thought this was a hydrogen embrittlement test.” His question was, “What’s the difference between a hydrogen embrittlement test and a stress durability test?” It was an excellent question, I thought, because some of us just suppose people know the difference. I’ll tell you the difference and we will cover the four major types of hydrogen embrittlement testing for fasteners.
One of my favorite topics, hydrogen embrittlement. In this case, it has to do with hydrogen embrittlement testing. The question that came my way was, what’s the difference between a hydrogen embrittlement test and a stress durability test? The answer is there is no difference. A stress durability test, as you can imagine, there’s stress and duration or durability. It’s simply a test where we put the fastener under a load for a given period of time and see what happens.
Does it break? Does it not break, does it stretch? There are several different types of hydrogen embrittlement tests and there are several different types of stress durability testing. Hydrogen embrittlement testing is simply a type of stress durability test where we put the fastener under a load for a period of time and we see if it is able to sustain that load without fracture.
That led me to think about the types of hydrogen embrittlement testing that we have available to us, or I should say the standards that govern them. I’m going to talk about four of them and then a fifth that’s not in a standard. The first and most common one that we’re used to comes from ASTM F606/F606M, and it’s in section seven of that standard. It’s called Tests for Embrittlement of Metallic Coated Externally Threaded Fasteners.
Now why they insist that it’s metallic coated, which tend to be electroplating, maybe that’s why, but there are other reasons you might want to do this test. I’m not crazy about the title of that paragraph, but it’s okay. I’m not going to read this whole section to you. I’m just going to tell you the essence of it is this. The object of the game is to put the test samples under a load of 75% of their specified ultimate tensile strength and do that with a wedge under the head if it is a headed fastener.
The angle of that wedge is determined based on how close to the head the fasteners are threaded and what the length to diameter ratio is. We put them under a load for some amount of time, 48 hours is the amount of time. After 24 hours, we torque them or re-tighten them, make sure that we have sustained our load.
At the end of that test, we remove the fastener, examine it, make sure it has not broken or cracked. It does also require that we do an examination with some magnified method. That’s ASTM F606, not my favorite test because if you have a long fastener, figuring out how to get a fixture that can work well can be difficult. I don’t like this test.
Also, for smaller fasteners, we don’t know the wedge sites because it starts at a quarter of an inch. When we have something smaller than that, we don’t get the wedge. The object of the game with the wedge is to actually get us a yield situation. The fastener bends at the head, so it’s going into yield under the head but not in the threads.
That wedge exacerbates the load on the fastener if you have a wedge, but it doesn’t do that in the threads and that normally that’s where the fracture’s going to take place in the threads or under the head. With F606, it’s almost always at the head because we have the wedge there, but it’s only 75% of the ultimate tensile strength. That’s method one, ASCM F606.
Our second method is ISO 1533 and that is probably my favorite method because it’s called the parallel plates test. I am going to read you some things from that standard about how the parallel plates test works because they do a very nice job of describing it. The title of that standard ISO 15330 is called Fasteners: Preloading Tests for the Detection of Hydrogen Embrittlement Parallel Bearing Surface Method. Here is the introduction because it’s very informative.
“When atomic hydrogen enters steels, it can cause loss of ductility or load carrying ability, cracking usually as submicroscopic cracks or catastrophic brittle failures at applied stresses well below the yield strength or even the normal design strength for the alloys can occur. This phenomenon often occurs in alloys that show no significant loss in ductility when measured by conventional tensile tests and is frequently referred to as hydrogen induced delayed brittle failure, hydrogen stress cracking or hydrogen embrittlement.”
“The hydrogen can be induced during heat treatment, very rare. Gas car rising, also very rare. Cleaning, rare. Pickling, rare. Phosphate, rare. Electroplating, the most common cause. In the service environment, which we call external or environmental hydrogen embrittlement, not that rare as a result of the protection or corrosion reactions in the assembly.”
Hydrogen can also be introduced during fabrication, which is very rare. For example, during roll forming, machining and drilling due to coolant or lubricant breakdown as well as during welding or brazing operations. Mainly for us, it’s going to be hydrogen from electroplating or hydrogen from the environment. I’m not going to focus on the product that is susceptible, but we all know we’re talking about high hardness fasteners above HRC39 or 1,200 megapascals and 180 KSI in tensile strength.
The nice thing I like about this standard is it’s very straightforward. It says during the principle the preloading test is carried out in suitable test devices. Fasteners are subjected to stress in the range of the yield point or the breaking torque either by torquing with a mating nut or bolt or driving into a pre-tapped plate. That’s extremely simple and straightforward. In the range of the yield point, which we would expect in that typical F606 test we talked about before that, that would give us close to the yield point, but we don’t know that because we don’t know where the yield point of that particular lot of fasteners is.
At 15330, no wedge, but we go to the yield point and the easiest way to get there, and it’s so simple, is simply put a torque wrench on the thing and tighten it with an indicating torque wrench until the torque stops going up. At that point, we know the fastener beginning to stretch permanently and you simply cannot get more of a load on it.
We have a similar situation where it’s stressed for 24 hours and we check it and then another 24 hours and we remove the fastener and we make sure it has not broken. Typically, when hydrogen embrittlement does occur in any of these tests, the fastener will fail catastrophically. Occasionally, the heads don’t pop off or the fastener doesn’t come out of the fixture and we discover that in the process of removing it. It just breaks like there was nothing there. Most of the time it will fail catastrophically.
Those are two methods so far, ASCM F606/F606M, and ISO 15330. Now we’re going to talk about actually what I think is my actual favorite method and that’s NASM 1312-5 and it’s called Fastener Test Methods Method Five, Stress Durability. It gives us multiple ways that we can get the load put on the fastener. We have the torque method of loading, which essentially is figuring out how much torque it might take to achieve the required load.
Elongation method. That way, we have to somehow measure the length of the fastener to determine how much load was put on it. We have the external loading method. We can use a load cell or some way to know externally what the load on the fastener was. We can use a strain gauge method of loading. Nobody’s going to do that, put a strain gauge on a fastener to do an HE test, but at the end of the day they also say we have a method called, I don’t know what we want to call this method, but I’m going to call it to do any anything you want because it says alternative loading method.
Any other method of applying and maintaining a load which results in a load of 75% to 80% of the product, minimum tensile strength being induced in the specimen is acceptable. All of those other ways we just talked about are acceptable and that’s fine. The test result cracks or fracture of any test specimen results in failure of the specimen. However, they also want you to inspect using a magnetic particle inspection or some type of non-destructive inspection that can detect the crack that makes these two tests be a pain in the ass to do that if you don’t have that equipment in house.
Typically, if I’m going to use 15330 and it’s my choice, I will say we are not doing the NDI because it’s not necessary, especially if it’s failed. You can examine it visually and know that it’s good. If the requirement of NASM 1312 is called out, then we have to actually do that examination. The fourth and I think the simplest of all tests is from ASMEB 18.6.3. That’s our tapping screw standard as machine screws and tapping screws.
Tapping screws are hardened. There’s a section called the hydrogen and brittle tests section 4.11.5, and it says, “This test is applicable when required by the plating or coating specifications such as ASCMF 1941/F1941M. Screws shall be installed in the test plate, head of the screws seated against a standard steel flat washer. We tighten those screws until they break. At some number of them, it says tighten at least five until they break breaking torque and then we determine the average of that breaking torque and we tighten the test screws to 80% of that.
That is a bunch of busy unnecessary work and I would like to change the standard because essentially, we don’t have to take them to braking. We can do something very similar to what we did in ISO 15330. Simply tighten them down until the torque stops increasing, then we will know we’re not going to be able to load that fastener any further than that.
Also, this is only a 24-hour test. It’s not a 48-hour sustained loading test, so 24 hours is not really long enough for other types of screws other than these tapping screws. In any case, fracture of any part of the screw as a result of re-tightening after 24 hours would constitute the failure. The other method that I’m going to talk to you about is the stuff that we make up every now and then.
We have to test something for hydrogen embrittlement in which there is no standard. Using a combination of all of these methods, we can find a way to put any oddball fastener under a load that we need to get under a load for the stress durability test. We just basically call that the Carmen method and we have to use it many times here at Carver Labs.
Those are the five methods. ASCM F606, ISO 15330N, NSM 13125 and the ASAMB 18.6.3. These are specific to finished fasteners. They’re not for testing for susceptibility of coatings or materials or anything. They apply to finished fasteners only. There’s also a US car test out there that has to do with automotive, which is old. I don’t like that test so I’m not going to talk about it.
You probably know a lot about hydrogen embrittlement and now you know a little bit more because you know about the test methods that are applicable. You also know that a stress durability test and a hydrogen embrittlement test for fasteners are the same thing. This has been Carmen Vertullo with the —Fastener Training Minute. Thanks for reading.
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Rich Cavoto: A Legend’s Return – Metric & Multi-Standard’s New Chapter
It’s feature segment time. The MWFA FSTNR Week. The week with no vowels is coming up. We keep talking about that, promoting it as hard as we can because it’s a great event. Hope to see a lot of you out there and with us now is a legend of the MWFA and the wider fastener industry, really. He’s Rich Cavoto.
Eric, how you doing buddy? Thanks for having me. Much appreciated.
Of course. It’s long overdue. We’ve been threatening now for seven years.
I think maybe closer to five. Of course, I do see Lynn at some of the shows and give her a little bit of feedback.
Yeah, that’s right. You pop in every now. Actually, I think you and GQ did a segment a couple of years back. We had some fun with that. I remember you were explaining the Cavoto method of driving down into the city.
Just a friendly wave, no eye contact.
Yeah, that was the key ingredient. I remember that. That was a lot of fun. How have you been, buddy? You’re looking good.
Yeah, just spent a little time in Florida in the winter here now and coming back for 8 or 9 months here and it’s been good. It’s been beautiful here in Chicago. I listened to a couple of your episodes with my man, Big Country, who derived that nickname because he hits the golf ball a country mile as whoever played with them knows. Just a good guy. I think we’re actually sneaking over soon. We just signed up with them so that ought to be a good change for us.
That’s a surprise. I had no idea. Metric And Multi is shifting over to INxSQL. That’s great. Amazing what can be accomplished on the golf course.
It’s amazing in the Midwest how golf can translate into business for fasteners and software and many other things. It should be a good partnership.
You’re known for a lot of things. Of course, golf is one of them. This is a weird twist of fate that you and I had. Actually, there are several of them, but you were an officer of a country club and this is before I got into the fastener industry. You were an officer out there in Naperville, Illinois. I actually had a condo at the time right on the first tee. It was the women’s tee, but I was right there for all those years. You were playing golf right next to me.
I swear I never hit your house. A couple of my buddies probably did, but there’s actually a few younger members that lived there now who are convenient to just stroll out and stroll over to the clubhouse and play a little golf. Yeah, small world.
I had that place for seven years. It was second floor and I only got hit once, at least on the glass. Of course, it was right in the middle of the sliding glass door. Guess what? Crest Creek, you guys took care of the bill. I was very impressed with that.
I’m sure they probably figured out about what time it was and nailed the group that was in it and someone probably owned up to it, like they do on the 14th hole and they throw one in the parking lot and take a windshield out.
Is that how that works?
Yeah. The members will pay for the most part if they hit anything. If not, I’m sure the club will step right in.
That’s pretty cool because those fairways in that area, they’re that part of the course. They’re pretty tight and we don’t have nets. A lot of places, communities that are adjacent to golf courses, they’ve got those giant nets and we didn’t have that. I don’t know, at a certain point, you assume the responsibility for living right next to a tee, wouldn’t you think?
Every hole at Crest Creek has out bounds and or a house left. You got someone who hooks on a regular basis, heads up. It could be coming. Houses do get nicked throughout the year. A lot of trees have filled in and hopefully, that knocks it down 90% of the time.
Getting back to Big Country, you were out golfing with him. I take it you’ve golfed with him on several occasions based on what he was saying. You’re his fastener dad.
After I nicknamed him Big Country, he calls me dad, I call him son. We played a couple of times, a few years back in Vegas. I invited him up. As a matter of fact, I’m thinking he’s going to come out on that Sunday before the show and play with our man, Bertone, and Steve. We should have a good time there. We played a handful of times. The youth has really paid off for him because when he hit the ball, as long as he can hit it, I can hit it decent and I’m hitting a 5 iron or 6 iron and he’s hitting little, so he’s solid. He’s one of definitely one of better golfers in the industry.
What do you think of the nickname that he came up with you on the last episode? Big Daddy.
I think dad is sufficient, but we always have a good time. I’ll probably step way back and play more golf. We’ll see what happens.
I don’t like you foreshadowing that because the industry will not be the same without you if that does ever happen. Actually, to tell you the truth, I was surprised to hear that you’ve already shifted into snowbird mode. You’re going down to Florida three months a year, golfing your face off on your lunch hour, of course.
A lot of pickleball.
You’re into that too now too, aren’t you? GQ plays with you, I heard.
Yeah, and GH III.
All on a league? Is that what it is?
No, we just go on an indoor place in Naperville for two hours on outdoor. Got some nice pickleball courts now. Just watching those two run around like crazy and beating them on a regular basis, it’s fun.
Yeah, I can imagine it. That needs to be a sanctioned event at the Naperville Fastener Association, I think.
Could be. We actually had an event at the Midwest Fastener. It was great. There was probably 25, 30 people. Other than the fact it was in Algonquin, which I thought I was in the corner of Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin by the time I got there, it was a lot of fun. It was a great facility. A lot of people. As I said, 25, 30 people showed up and it was a big hit.
The MWFA is definitely thriving and you would not have been able to catch this because it was earlier in the episode, but Joanne Bialas was on earlier and she mentioned that Nancy Rich is still executive director of SEFA. I had no idea. Actually, I think I did, but I completely forgot about that. She retired from MWFA with great fanfare, but she’s still active. Maybe she’s doing the snowbird thing, too.
I’m not sure if she’s doing the snowbird thing because I think her grandkids are more up this way. I haven’t seen her in a few months now, but I’m not sure if she’s snowbirding yet. I highly recommend it if you can.
Tip taken. When you go down there, do you see Jason Bertone a lot? You mentioned him. He’s a bionic guy all around, but I imagine he’s really hot on the greens.
He’s up in Orlando. We’re probably about three hours South of him down in Naples. I’ve been up there. I go up there one time a year to see him. He’s actually come down a few years ago. He got married a few years back in February, which was an over-the-top, amazing wedding. That was fun. We went up and played golf. One of our suppliers events in Orlando and we always have to stop and say hi to Jason.
Do you keep him rolling on the course? Is that one of your tactics for shaving points off his score or anyone else that you’re golfing with? Here’s the thing, Rich. Every time I look over at you, whenever we go out for drinks after one of these events, you’re always sitting at a table somewhere. I don’t want to cast any aspersions here because this is a compliment, but there’s normally a gaggle of young girls around you who are in constant laughter.
Younger than me. Life’s too short. I’ve lost a couple of buddies over the last few years who were my age or a couple of years younger and you just never know out there. Just live it to its fullest half fun and let’s you get the work done, which we do because we’ve been pretty busy all through COVID and still going pretty good here. The fun factor has to creep in there. Life’s too short. I’m knocking on 70’s door here in a couple of years and still having fun and laughing and make people laugh. That’s pretty much what it’s all about.
Yeah, you’re good at that. You’re one of the young guys. Just ask Leo.
I did. He’s knocking 90.
Ninety-two, I believe.
I told my dad, when he turned 80, “You made it to the bonus round,” he goes, “What about 90?” I go, “Double bonus round. What do you think?” He almost made it, got to 89 and had a good full life. I don’t think I could take the over under 89 myself, but you never know.
Who do you see in the fastener industry that impresses you who is part of the younger set? Now we’re starting to sound like dinosaurs and we don’t feel that way, I guarantee that. Do you see anybody out there who impresses you?
Of course you got Brian Wheeler who used to be in the Chicago area, now he’s out in God’s country out West. We got a lot of good young board members on the Midwest led by our president, Jill, Corey, Sam Lang. There’s probably a few more here I’d have to have look up. There’s just a lot of good young people getting involved in the Midwest Association.
I haven’t been to many association meetings or events in the last few years, but I’m sure there’s a lot of younger people coming up there too and jumping in and helping. I’m telling you, you’d be surprised how much business you can actually get through a connection like an association and all the events and networking that people do.
For sure. Come on. That’s what this is all about. I’m going to be get in the Wayback Machine again because I’m going to tell you on yet another link that we have. I don’t know if you remember this one or not. When Brian and I first started immersing ourself in the fastener world, at that time, of course we did not anticipate that it would become our full-time thing. It was going to be a sideline for our tech business. We had somebody helping us introducing us here and there. We didn’t know anybody in the fastener industry. The first event I attended was Fastener Tech out in Rosemont. It was in the days when Fastener Tech wasn’t just a tabletop. It was like a regular trade show with 10 by 10 booths and all that.
It was like in a two-day show, which these days is pretty exclusive to Vegas.
In comparison to what’s out there now, it was a monster. It was a lot of fun. Guess who the first person that I was ever introduced to in the fastener industry was.
Marty Nolan
It was you. That’s right. Was introduced by somebody who I will not name, but you definitely were not receptive to the pitch in the sense that you weren’t going to do business with me just on the basis that I was reaching my handout. On the other hand, you were very gentleman. You listened to what I had to say, nodded politely and smiled.
I had been a sponsor ever since.
Yes, thank you. Metric of multi, you guys have been with us for many years and we’re glad to have passed you many leads and I hope you’ve gotten a lot out of it. That story, I don’t know that I ever told you that all these years we’ve hung out and stuff like that, but that’s the truth.
You’ll have to send me a sidebar who that was.
The shows and the associations are vital to the industry. Everybody knows that.
Industry shows and associations are vital — everyone in the business knows it. Share on XThe days of the two-day association shows like we used to have and that was a big proponent of just sticking with the really good tabletop, which I think obviously the Midwest Fastener has done a pretty good job over the years making their full fastener week. You only have the Sleep and Heavenly Peace Bed Build on that Sunday. Monday night, there’s the networking at the Marriott, have some plant tours, welcome dinner, know the presentations from the Federal Reserve and then the show and then the golf. It’s a pretty busy four days or so. We get a lot of good feedback, especially from people out of town. It’s easy for me. It’s a 35, 40-minute drive to get up there and people come in, I think, get their money’s worth. I think it’s a definite benefit to the industry.
You just snuck in a plug there for this year’s FSTNR Week. Good for you. Get more details, folks, at MWFA.net. I happen to know the dates on that. Let’s see, the 23rd is the Mud Race, 24th is the Sunday Bed Build. The 25th, I think, is the plant tours.
They have the mixer that night on the 25th at the Lincoln Shop Marriott.
The 26th is the tabletop. I’m doing that from memory, conscientious host that I am. I used to refer to you as the pipeline to the stars, at least for the MWFA, because he used to bring in all those big names for the keynotes and stuff. The Fed guy, he’s a retired Fed guy now. Is he the one presenting about the Federal Reserve?
I didn’t get him. I usually get a person for our scholarship dinner in November. I’ve gotten a few baseball players, Brian Sweeney, Ryan Dumpster, a few of the network guys, my buddy, Rich, who’s a movie critic and still on the radio doing some type of movie stuff. It got us a connection. I think we had Ryan one year, one of the sports broadcasters on Fox. I forget his name. Yeah, those couple of people I can reach out to and they can usually fill it in. Now that I’m off the board, though. I’m not sure who they’re getting this year, but if they ever need help, I’ll be glad to put the word out.
Do you think they got another connection over there at the Fed?
The Fed are doing for more of a market outlook on that morning from like 9:45 for an hour to 10:45 before the show.
I guess I misunderstood. I thought that meant that you were going to have somebody from the Fed because you always used to have Bill Strauss out there. That was a great connection.
This guy is a principal business economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. He’s going to give a one-hour market outlook presentation. In 2024, we did the game show where you were the host. I was on the panel. It was fun. This will be a little more serious, I’m thinking.
I didn’t realize that. You swapped out the game show for the Fed. I don’t know how I feel about that, to tell you the truth.
I’m off the board this year. You could roll the dice at Bob and George and Jill.
Variety’s the spice of life. Getting back to the shows and everything like that, what was the background? I sensed that there might have been a little bit of, I’m not going to say bad blood, but there was a little tension there between MWFA and the Fastener Fair people when those guys first moved in because right after that show started, Fastener Tech went away, basically. Now, the MWFA just has the tabletops, because it used to alternate every other year.
Tabletop to Fastener Tech. As I said earlier, I don’t think people like coming out for two days to go to Rosemont Horizon. Obviously, it’s right close to O’Hare, but two days there, we just didn’t think it was worth it. We just thought the tabletop, you got a lot more bang for your buck and the golf course is in the same facility. No one has to leave. We made a decision a few years back to just stick with tabletops even though it probably cost us a little bit of revenue for our scholarships because we made a little more money renting at a bigger place.
We just outweighed what was best for the distributor who’s exhibiting. We felt the tabletop was a little bit better for them overall. With Fastener Tech, there was a little bit of pushback, just pretty much saying, “Go to Cleveland, go to Detroit, go to Nashville.” We just didn’t really want them in our backyard within a month or two-month period of our show. That was probably handled by someone other than me with the pushback on it. They’ve been, I think, very accommodating and pushing around. I think next year we’re going to Charlotte and so it should be good.
You mentioned in passing the big issue in the fastener industry at present and that’s tariffs. Everybody’s got some experiences to share. First of all, I’m not even going to ask how bad it is because I have a sense of that, but what’s your take on it right now? What do you see?
I do reach out to all the buddies in the Chicagoland area and other guys I’m friends with who are importers. It’s a nightmare. For the most part, we probably only do 5% to 8% from China and getting whacked around for 90%, 95%. It a months ago, still up in the air being another couple of days away before everything gets implemented. Everything in Europe, I think it’ll still be 50%.
A 50% increase does not go over big once we need to reorder. Our inventory has been pretty good. We really didn’t have to really start ordering more inventory probably until about eight weeks ago. Of course, now that it’s coming in and the increase is literally 50%. Passing that along, you’re trying to absorb some of it, but 50% is 50% and 90%-plus on China, it doesn’t go over big, but everyone’s in the same boat. I’m not sure if you talk to other people, but everyone I’m talking to is just paying the tariff and you’ve got to make it up somehow. Obviously, the only real reason that way to do it is increase pricing. Hopefully not 50%, but absorb some and pass probably the bigger chunk on your customers.
That’s really your only option. My next question is about margins. We’re all taking margin shrinkage, isn’t that really the fact of it?
Definitely taking margin shrinkage. It’s just a tough one to figure out. Our margins, they’re decent for the fastener industry. Are they the best? No. Are they the worst? No. We’re probably right in the middle. You have to maintain it based on the employees we have. Five locations here, one in Germany, it’s a little bigger overhead. We only own one of the buildings we’re in. Rent doesn’t go down, you’re paying your employees a little more, the cost of all the secondary products is going up, the packaging going up. There’s little relief to cut your profit too much without passing the higher pricing to your customers.
This is what everybody’s belaboring right now and we don’t have to go on about it. I just wanted to take the temperature over there and it’s pretty much what everybody’s experiencing, so we’ll just have to ride this out. Hope for the best. That’s all there is to it. Alright, so taking the tariff issue out of it, if that’s possible, for this next question.
You’re in the fastener industry many years. You’re looking down the road at say increasing your snowbird status. Let’s put it that way. Looking back on this career that you’ve had, what’s been the most challenging thing about the fastener industry? What’s been the biggest trial that you’ve had to overcome to really succeed the way that you have?
You’re a legend and I know you work real hard. You work through lunch most days that I see when you’re not golfing, that is. We make a lot of jokes about all the fun that you have, but you are just busting it out when you are in the office. I know. I’ve seen you do it and what do you think is really the big challenge there?
I’m telling you right now, Eric, I think this is it. Honestly, this is it. We have customers increasing prices and now there’s a big push for material certs, cfcs. The one thing about Europe, they don’t give you the CFC. They charge anywhere from a $100 to $300 for the material cert. The tariffs are the number one thing that I think is the biggest challenge that I’ve probably seen in my career here. Hopefully, it doesn’t end my career, but this has been rough. It’s the tariff.
What I’m hearing though is aside from tariffs, we’re talking about maybe increasing bureaucracy. It sounds like paperwork certs and things like that. In Europe, we also have all the CBAM issues to contend with these days. You guys are bringing in a pile of material from Europe that must be affecting you big time.
Yeah, it’s a nightmare. The tariffs on top of the regulations the CBAM and just everything else, the lucky thing for me is obviously I’m in Chicago, everything goes in into New York and they handle all the logistics on that. We have a customer looking for a material cert. The order might be $100, the cert’s going to be $150. Do you want the cert or you don’t want the cert? A lot of people are requiring it now. They have to pay for it.
It’s a bullpen set up you guys have over there and I can hear it’s a hub of activity at Metric and Multi standard despite all the hardship, Rich. That part of it’s good to hear. You got a good crew over there, don’t you? You guys are always on.
I definitely am one of the best. I’m not sure you’ve met my assistant, Nancy. I’ve been here 45 years, I think she’s been here 46 years. Everyone else 25, 20. We have a couple of newer guys who are grabbing the bull by the horns who have been here 4, 5 years. They’re doing a nice job. I got a good warehouse girl who just runs the show back there and makes sure those boys get the right product in the right bag.
Alright, good to hear. We’ll go around the horn, bring us up to speed on Johnny Reno and the rest of the crew over there for folks who know Metric and Multi and their minion in the industry.
Yeah, Johnny Reno’s doing great out there. He’s healthy now. He had a little health issue a few years back and he’s back to 95% because when he threatens to me with a fork, I know he’s back to normal. Joel’s actually retiring on 10/10. It’s metric day. It’ll be his last day. Another salesperson used to be with our company a few years back came back and he’s going to be taking over the New York sales, Frank Eaton.
We have Jimmy Dobbs down in Georgia. He’ been with the company a long time, and then Edgar down at Texas, he’s doing a nice job down there. Handles a lot of stuff obviously in the Southwest and lot of good stuff in Mexico. Of course, we have an office in Germany who facilitates about 95% of the items we get to us. They do a nice job. We get an air freight every week from them probably once a month, maybe twice a month, let alone the other stuff we’re getting from other suppliers in the Far East. It’s definitely happened. Other than the fact that we get a shipment in the last month and it costs you $100,000 in tariffs.
Great crew. I know they’re all operating at full capacity right now, so that’s good news despite it all. You’re right there in the thick of it.
I am. It’s a good place to be. As I said, if it wasn’t a good company, I wouldn’t have been here for 45 years. I appreciate the owners having their faith in me and giving them their money’s worth. As I said, another 6 to 18 months and spend a little more quality time on the golf course, pickleball courts.
I don’t want to talk about that part of it, Rich. I’m going to see you. I’m going to try and talk to you about that. By the way, speaking of Joel, he mentioned to me that he was checking out when I saw him in Nashville, and 10/10 metric day. I love that.
Yeah, that’s his day, 10/10. I threatened to tell him 10/11 but these tariffs keep up, but like I said, I got another 6 to 18 in me, so we’ll keep it rolling. Pass the torch somewhere along the way here.
Rich, thanks for the rundown on all this. It’s good to finally have you on. I hope you got done what you needed to and I look forward to seeing you.
I appreciate you having me on. It was a lot of fun and we will see you.
Rich Cavoto, legend of the industry. Legend of the MWFA.
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We covered a lot of ground on the episode as advertised. I hope you enjoyed it. Brian ran back into the data center. I tell you, we just can’t keep him away from the AI now that that genie’s out of the bottle for him. For those of you who are familiar with the FCH Sourcing Network Source Finder program, that’s one of the areas that he’s focusing on. He’s putting AI to work in that area. That should be hitting the street pretty soon. Stay tuned.
I’ll wrap it up and thank everyone for reading this episode. Kerry Tyler and Ali Gonzalez of Emerald kicked things off for us with their preview of the International Fastener Expo. Look forward to seeing them and a lot of you out there come September. Joanne Bialas, congratulations on the 30th anniversary of International Fasteners and thanks for sitting in with us warming up the news report.
Kevin Godin and Mike McNulty, great job on the FDI. Of course, Rich Cavoto was our featured guest. Hope he hangs in there for another 12 to 18 minimum, maybe more. We’ll see you in Chicago pretty soon, Rich. We’ll talk about it. Plus, Carmen Vertullo had the Fastener Training Minute and Marco Rodriguez did his cameo for Cresa.
The title sponsors of Fully Threaded Radio are Brighton Best International, tested, tried, true. Brighton Best. Goebel Fasteners, quality the first time. Go Goebel. Star Stainless, right off the shelf, it’s Star. Fully Threaded Radio is also sponsored by Buckeye Fasteners and the Ohio Nut and Bolt Company. BTM Manufacturing, Cresa Expert Real Estate Advisory. Eurolink Fastener Supply Service, Endries International, INxSQL Software, Fastener Technology International, J. Lanfranco, MW Components, the International Fastener Expo, Solution Industries, Volt Industrial Plastics, and Wurth Industry USA. Our roster of partners is expanding. It’s an honor to be working with all of you.
As I was doing some post-production, I was flashing over to LinkedIn and I was reminded that everyone in the industry owes Wurth a big shout-out. I see a poster here from the Fastener Training Institute. They’re running a class out in LA. It’s the Dimensional and Material Specifications class on the CFS track. Few photos out there, including Mud Racers, Carmen Vertullo and Dan Zender. They have big smiles on their face. I don’t know if they’re doing their training or not while they’re at the class, but I hope they’re going to be ready. Our big race is on August 23rd, right around the corner.
The Fastener Training Institute does so much for the industry and worth is right there supporting them. Great photo also of some of the training materials with their branding on it. Reminded me of that. Good time to shout that out. If you want to give us a shout-out, please do. The email address is FTR@FullyThreaded.com.
I appreciate you reading. Please share the show with your friends and associates in the industry. It’s one of the best ways for us to keep on growing. We have events right around the corner. The next one is the MWFA FSTNR Week. We’ll see you out there. I’m going to be schlepping a 30-pack of warm Busch Light. If you’re in the golf outing and you don’t do so well, you’re not in big country’s leagues, shall we say. Who knows? Maybe you’ll take that home one way or another. We’ll talk to you then. Get out there, sell some screws. Don’t let this tariff situation get to you. We’ll talk to you next time.
Important Links
- Kerry Tyler on LinkedIn
- Ali Gonzalez on LinkedIn
- Kevin Godin on LinkedIn
- Joanne Bialas on LinkedIn
- Rich Cavoto on LinkedIn
- Marco Rodriguez on LinkedIn
- Fully Threaded Radio Email
- Episode 217 with Kara Bosse
- International Fastener Expo
- Fastener Technology International Magazine
- Fastener Distribution Index Survey
- Mike McNulty Email
- Mid-West Fastener Association
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