What are nutserts?

Effectively they are an attachment, a threaded insert that you can insert and attach to any flat surface. And that might be steel. It might be alloy and it probably could even be plastic. It’s pretty much anything as long as it’s a flat surface. You can see from both sides. What actually happens when you install a nutsert? They have some grooves in the top section and what that helps the nuts that do is grip. Whatever hole it’s gone through and then, it has a crushable section at the end there. And essentially what you are doing is that go into the hole there. The tool then crushes the whole component flat against itself. That’s what grips the surface. That you can insert a bolt through the top here. It’s super handy they’re easy to use and when you have the right tool. And we’re going to run through that in a second. Essentially any time that you have a flat surface that you are wanting to screw a bolt into a nutsert is the way to go.         

So how to use nutserts and how to install nutserts?

There are a couple of different ways. There are two main ways and we’re going to be covering both of those in this blog. We’re going to be installing using the proper method, using an actual tool. Now if you don’t have a tool, that is okay you can still get away with installing rivet nuts by using a nut bolt and a couple of washers.

First is you need a flat surface. It’s really important that the surface you are installing this into is flat. The main reason for that is it needs to mate into the shoulder of the nutter nice and flush. You can imagine if this plate was either really rough or curved. You’re not really going to get that nice mating point into the nutsert itself. Step one is to make sure you’ve got a flat surface. Step two is once you’ve got the spot that you want to install the nutsert into is choose the actual bolt itself first. The reason for that is you’ll notice that the actual bolt size. And the whole size is different. So you don’t want to install one of these guys and then realize bugger. If you don’t have a bolt that will actually fit into it now I recommend buying it on folivscrew.com and getting an actual tool itself. You can find them here for cheap as chips they really are pretty inexpensive as a tool goes. That one here came with everything from an m3 all the way up to an m12, so Foliv gives you lots of flexibility in what size nutserts. You’re going to be installing for what size bolts also while you’re on folivscrew.com get yourself a box with a gazillion and different types and knots here. It’s handy as to have as you can see it has heaps of different nutserts and you’ll effectively really going to run out. And we can be guaranteed there’s going to be one to suit the application. So once you’ve chosen the bolt size that you’re going to be using for the application.   

The next step is to get a nutserts that will fit the hole. Once you’ve done that it’s a matter of actually drilling the hole to suit the nutserts itself. Some of them will be labeled, other times you’ll just need to get some calipers and to actually measure the size of the nutserts themselves. Make sure you measure around the top because some of them are tapered a little bit, so for example, if you need an as 12 mil hole, you can see in there and you’ve already pre-drilled that holes. You will just get a couple of different versions. We recommend getting a long-handled version, sometimes you can get them as a gun or with really short handles. The problem with that is its whole thing is based on leverage, so as you can see the bigger the handle, the more leverage you’re going to be able to get when you are squeezing. Put the nutserts into the flat surface. How it works is you should have a collar up the top. And different sized eyes which are these ones. You want to confirm that the nutserts that you have chosen fit the hole, they want to make sure that that fits in there. You don’t want them to be too loose if they’re crazy loose. It’s not gonna work so a little bit of play is okay because what we’re gonna be doing is effectively squashing this section here down and a tall gem onto a bit of alloy there. So once you confirm that your hole is good to go and nice and cleaned up.

The next step is getting the right size. If you want to install it into the tool, these might be slightly different depending on your tool. But if we hold that and with your finger pull down, it is the little collar up the top. With the short end than to the tool, screw it all the way down and it locks into place with its collar. So you’ll get that right the collar will pop up. And what that does is allow it to move around and it’s locked into place. Now once you’ve got your die installed and the collar locked down you want to take your locking nut and what that does with the thread side down it screws over the top just like this and screws into the top of the collar here of the tool. What that does is just keeps that nice and solid. Once you’ve got that in there grab your nutserts of choice and you want to just screw that all the way down until it’s tight against the locking nut and you are good to go, confirm that there’s not too much wiggle room otherwise you might have to go up a size. You can open its jaws all the way out and you will see a gap. You want to then screw this all the way down so that if you go to pull on the tool, you’ll feel some resistance. Don’t squeeze it just yet then you want to insert it into your hole, making sure that the mating surface and that shoulder are nice and flush then. You want to start squeezing together while pressing down towards the surface and as you can see it will start crushing the nutserts onto the surface. What you should have at that point is this bead that runs around the inside of your surface. That means that it is squished down and it should be nice and tight and from there that’s what this little handle eternity thing here.

In the end, is that’s the official word for it in the instructions anyway. What that will do is just release the tool from the nutserts itself. So you just basically screw it out just like that the tools out, so you can pop that to the side. So you can see that the nutserts are nice and flush on one side, the outer side would be the outside of whatever you’re putting the nuts out into. It’s nice and flush and solid against the surface itself. From there it’s just a matter of grabbing your bolt and it should if you’ve done the right screw. You should be able to just talk the right down its nut. So it won’t go anywhere if you have done this correctly. It will go through the whole nuts, so on one side, it will protrude depending on the length of you and your board of course. But it will come through you want to at least go that full distance of the nutserts itself. And on the top, it’s just like any other regular bolt that’s screwed into a screw hole. There is another way you can do this without the tool itself, check-up at the top.

And this is the blog about what nutserts are, how to use them, and how to install them using the correct tool.