A394-1 bolts with missing MTRs

[Robertthebeamguy]

Greetings! Is there any way to re-certify tower bolts?

Background: My employer is about to scrap a large quantity of galvanized tower bolts unless we can figure out a way to get them properly certified for sale. Unfortunately, we discovered after accepting delivery that many test reports are missing. We bought them "surplus" from the BC Hydro ILM job. Bolts are in manufacturer-sealed containers, but the manufacturer is mired in a "legal dispute" and refuses to help. The whole deal seems really sketchy.

If we sent them to the laboratory to get them re-tested, would we have a chance? Or are we out-of-luck without the manufacturer’s cooperation? Thanks!

 

[transmissiontowers]

We deal with these guys:

http://threadedfasteners.com

They supply us with tower bolts and are a distributor, IIRC. We deal with the Mobile Alabama office and they are always helpful. You might ask them what can be done.

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I have been called "A storehouse of worthless information" many times.

 

[MotorCity]

Who do you want to certify them? I would contact that party. If they have never been used and are still in the original containers, I see no reason that the original certification is void.

If you bought them surplus, chances are someone else would too. Try Craigslist or ebay

 

[transmissiontowers]

I contacted my friend in the bolt business and he seemed to remember a large quantity of A394 bolts that were rejected by BC Hydro because they failed the Charpy test and were sold as scrap. If this is the circumstance with these bolts in the picture and your employer bought scrap bolts with the intent of selling them as approved and certified A394 bolts, then I recommend you not try to sell them to a utility in the USA.

If these bolts were indeed extras and just need to be retested and certified, then you may want to find someone to do that.

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I have been called "A storehouse of worthless information" many times.

 

[Robertthebeamguy]

Hey guys, thanks so much for responding. We bought the bolts as surplus from a salvage company. The seller told us that the bolts were extras, so we had no indication that they may be rejects.

Half the bolts (not pictured) came from Threaded Fasteners, but those containers were not properly sealed, and they arrived covered in white rust, so those ones are definitely scrap. We received hundreds of pages of test reports on those worthless rusted bolts.

The other half of the bolts, some of which are pictured above, are in pristine condition inside sealed containers with desiccant. All 100% of the test reports for these bolts are missing. We have exhaustively pursued both the seller and manufacturer for the missing test reports, and they refuse to help.

@MotorCity: We actually tried eBay, but since we have 100 tons, it's not really within the scope of the typical eBay buyer. Selling by-the-pound was also unsuccessful, and would probably take forever anyway. Regarding the "original certification", each container has the original manufacturer's label, which lists contents and lot #, but any utility will demand Material Test Reports, which typically list the chemical composition of the steel. The manufacturer keeps these on file, and they should easily be able to match the lot numbers to the MTRs and send them to us. However, since we are not direct customers of the manufacturer, they have zero motivation to help us, especially since we'd be competition!

We only bought them because we mistakenly believed they came with certs, so I don’t imagine we’d have any success selling them as-is.

If these bolts failed Charpy testing, that may explain why the manufacturer is making us go through their lawyer, despite their vehement insistence that there’s nothing wrong with the bolts. (That's why I commented previously that this deal seems sketchy.)

Assuming that they fail Charpy, it's probably not worth the effort to get them recertified. Probably we'll just accept our losses and scrap them.

@transmissiontowers: I really appreciate the insider tip regarding the Charpy test.

 

[transmissiontowers]

The person I talked to at Threaded Fastener said they supplied the replacement bolts to BC Hydro so I will assume that the TFI containers that were not sealed and contained bad bolts were probably reused from the resupply batch and the bolts inside were not theirs. We have dealt with TFI for several years and have never had problems with their bolts.

On a side note, I saw a picture of a counterfeit A325 bolt from somewhere outside the USA (China I think but not real sure) where they had threaded a round bar and filet welded a hex bar to the end to make the head. IIRC, the heads popped off when the nut was tightened.

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I have been called "A storehouse of worthless information" many times.