Why the Material Makes the Difference in Cost-Efficient Safety Tools

Trying to find a middle-path between quality and cost while keeping the highest safety standard can sometimes seem to be an impossible task. The good news is that with AMPCO SAFETY TOOLS® one can get both, the quality and the cost-efficiency.

The secret ingredient for achieving the highest level of safety at the workplace while maxing out cost-efficiency lies within the material of the tool. Learn why AMPCO SAFETY TOOLS® are made out of special material and how that affects the costs long-term.

WHY DO SAFETY TOOLS CONSIST OF SPECIAL MATERIAL?

Tools have to be tailored for the environment they’re used in and therefore, they need special properties to ensure the safety of the workers and the surroundings, especially when highly flammable gases and vapors are present. Examples for such work environments are chemical, oil or gas industries as well as aircraft maintenance. Only one spark would be enough to ignite said gases and a horrendous explosion would be the aftermath leaving workers injured if not worse and infrastructure badly damaged.

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For this reason, it is of utmost importance that tools used in such environments don’t ever emit sparks, no matter what. For that, the material has to be soft enough so that if pieces should be extracted from the tool during work, they won’t be hot enough to ignite potentially present gases or vapors. What is more, to avoid that a tool causes magnetic disturbances in sensitive electronic devices, safety tools contain a limited amount of iron. Another essential property of the material used in a  safety tool is that it  is still hard enough and therefore allows the tool to have a high yield and tensile strength in order not to break easily and cause injuries that way. An additional positive side is that the tool can be made in optimized dimensions and like this, component weight can be saved.

WHAT MATERIAL DOES AMPCO SAFETY TOOLS® USE IN THE MANUFACTURING OF SAFETY TOOLS?

AMPCO SAFETY TOOLS® are made of aluminum bronze and specialty copper alloys which exceed the performance of material used in standard tools. Those materials are both non-sparking, non-magnetic and non-corrosive. To produce these alloys, AMPCO SAFETY TOOLS® uses a patented technology called MICROCAST® at the melting. This procedure is based on the exclusive steering, the so-called Magneto-Hydro-Dynamic. It ensures that the material achieves a higher homogeneity through fine and most uniform grains and awards it with an outstanding wear resistance. HOW CAN COST-EFFICIENCY BE GUARANTEED WITH AMPCO SAFETY TOOLS®? As mentioned above, the MICROCAST® procedure makes it possible to produce a material which has a much higher wear resistance due to the homogeneity of grains. In our view, a tool should be fabricated to be able to endure the tasks it is meant to perform and do so safely. However, standard materials often can’t endure the strains of their task for a long time and have to be replaced every so often which of course costs time and money. AMPCO SAFETY TOOLS® grants a lifetime warranty on all their products, as long as countries allow it. We promise to repair or replace any tool free of charge that breaks or fails to perform under normal service. Normal wear or damage through misuse, however, is not covered by said warranty.

The biggest saving point is efficiency which derives from the usage of the right tool for a given task. It allows workers to perform a task at hand in less time and move on to the next one. Also, the right tool prevents accidents which are, apart from the horrendous fact that people get injured or even killed, a huge cost factor. There is of course the direct costs of damaged infrastructure and material that have to be restored and the medical bills of injured workers. But what is more, there is the indirect cost caused by accidents: has an employee with a wide range of knowledge and skills been injured and therefore is forced to be absent for a longer period of time, valuable time in production is lost. Moreover, costs can also derive from missed deadlines and the like. To sum it up, accidents have to be prevented and the key to that is using the right tools and to use them safely.

Learn more in our "The Ultimate Guide for appropriate use of Safety Tools."

Download the Guide