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How Hard Is It To Get Into Aluminium?
Towards the end of last year, the Insight Data State of the Industry Report showed many fabricators adding aluminium options to their existing PVC-U...
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Holding It All Together
Is the most important component in the frame, the hardware, the hinges or the sealed unit? Ask the question of Rapierstar MD David Furnes and he will tell you the answer is likely to be the fastenings – screws to the layman.
When Furness started the business, then called Architectural Supplies, 31 years ago the answer might have been very different. Then, window fasteners were too often either low grade, cheap and poor-quality products, which caused huge problems for fabricators or over-engineered and phenomenally expensive.
Furness set out to change things. His plan was to bring to the market an innovative, technologically advanced and keenly priced range of fasteners. And it proved a success. They rapidly developed a loyal and dedicated customer base.
Standards
To achieve the vision, Rapierstar has established long-term partnerships with top manufacturers throughout the world. It maintains full control of product design, manufacture and supply, to deliver consistently high-quality fasteners to customers. All of its product range is rigorously tested in the technical centre in Macclesfield.
Furness says: “After 13 years as Architectural Supplies I thought it was time to make a change. The idea was to encapsulate all the products, backed by a strong customer support ethos, so we would be much more than ‘just a fastener supplier’. We launched the Rapierstar brand in 2005 along with its family of trademarked product ranges, including StarPVCU window screws, StarTurn universal timber screws, StarFix masonry fixings and StarPin polymer headed pins and nails.”
One billion in stock
Rapierstar claims to be the largest specialist designer and supplier of window and door screws in the UK and Ireland. It operates from a 100,000sq.ft HQ and bonded distribution and technical centre near Macclesfield in Cheshire, where more than one billion individual items are held in stock at any time. By holding many months of stock, the company is able to absorb the impacts of disrupted global trade. As a result, during both the pandemic and Brexit, it was able to offer stability to its customers across the UK and Ireland.
Knowing the market
One of the company’s greatest assets and differentiators is its technically skilled, customer-focused team. They provide a specialist advice service rooted in fastener expertise with a focus on the fenestration market. This team supports fabricators, installers, systems companies and hardware manufacturers. By working right across the industry, they are in an excellent position to help customers, whether by improving the quality of their products, getting new products through testing regimes, overcoming technical issues or boosting productivity efficiency and health and safety in customer factories
Big role
Furness says: “Rapierstar works constantly to highlight the crucial role that fasteners play in the assembly and construction of every building element, including doors and windows. This is necessary because they are often taken for granted because they are so small and – per unit – by far the lowest cost component in the finished product. We have seen, often, that one failure, such as a friction stay screw breaking and causing the casement to fall loose, can have costly consequences in terms of call-backs and reputation.
“The quality and performance of the highly engineered PVC-U and aluminium window systems in today’s market depends upon the weakest link in the chain – which can be the fasteners used in assembly. This is one of the reasons why the vast majority of the UK’s fenestration industry relies on us for the correct advice in selecting the best screw for each application and consistently reliable delivery.
“Today’s window screws are vastly superior in every way compared to those of the early 1990s. The plating and passivation performance of our products helps to provide increased corrosion resistance to exceed extended guarantees and the products are far stronger and also more forgiving.
“Point technology has increased speed of insertion and therefore fabricator efficiency. This is why leading hardware manufacturers recommend Rapierstar screws and why the company works with all the major profile manufacturers to develop Recommended Fixing Manuals. These are available to all fabricators to download on the Rapierstar website.
Picture: Rapierstar holds up to one billion screws in stock at any one time.
Article written by Cathryn Ellis
04th December 2023