80/20: Flat Plates Overview

Hello, and welcome to 80/20's product highlight series. Today we're going to take a look at the flat plates. 80/20's flat plates are not only easy to install, but also require no machining. They come in fractional, metric, and are available across a wide range of profile series.

When using it, you have a choice. A flat plate can be used for a stand-alone fastening method, or to reinforce another fastening method. Here you can see a small sample of the many flat plates that 80/20 offers. As you can see, the plates come in a wide variety of shapes, and sizes, making it one of the more versatile fastening methods 80/20 offers. Now one thing you'll want to keep in mind when using the flat plate is, you'll need bolt assemblies to install it. Recommended bolt assemblies for all flat plates, can be found in the 80/20 product catalog.

Now when it comes to installing the flat plate, the first thing you'll want to do is preload your hardware. Preloading not only makes it easier to install your flat plate, but also saves time during assembly. To save additional time and money, you'll want to look for opportunities where you can substitute out a single T-nut, for double and triple T-nuts, like in this example.

Now to get started, we'll take our plate with the preloaded hardware on it, and finish it up by putting the last bolt in it. We'll take our T-nut and put it on. Now, you'll want to make sure when using the T-nut, you have the pilot hole facing downwards. We'll get that on there. At this point we're ready for our bars. We'll slide the flat plate on. We'll take our other bar, get it on there. Once we have all that on there, we'll take our wrench and tighten down each bolt. Once we have that tightened, we have a strong, secure connection.