What are Spider Fittings? Where are They Used?
Spider Fittings, or Glass Spider Fittings, are the stainless steel hardwares for mounting glass to walls, posts, fins, or other structural substrates. Typical Types of spider fittings can be divided into Fin Spiders fittings and Point fix Spider fittings.
Ideal for creating an “all glass” look, Spider Fittings are designed for mounting to walls, posts, fins or other structural substrates with minimal visible connections. Holes must be drilled in the glass for assembly. Spider Fittings are available in 1-, 2-, 3-, and 4-arm configurations in two finishes and can be used with a variety of typical glass thicknesses.
Manufacturing Process of Spider Fittings
Stainless steel casting is a casting process of manufacturing complex shapes with stainless steel materials that are not easily or cost effectively forged or fabricated. Because of the multi-shapes and large demands of spider fittings, they are usually made from stainless steel casting process (lost wax / investment casting method). Stainless steel casting involves heating stainless steel to above its melting point and introducing the material into a mould where it solidifies into the required dimensions of spider fittings.
Advantages of Stainless Steel Casting for Glass Spider Fittings
- With stainless steel casting, a good size accuracy (CT5-CT6) and surface finish (Ra6.3) can be expected for spider fittings, and machining can be saved.
- There are a wide range of spider fittings: 1 way spide fittings, 2 way spide fittings, 3 way spide fittings and 4 way spide fittings. All these types of spider fittings can be realised by stainless steel casting with the workforce of moulds, which can not be replaced by other manufacturing processes.
- Stainless steel casting is the copy process by casting spider fittings separately, which is more better to keep the consistency and control the quality in high production efficiency.
Grades of Stainless Steel Cast Spider Fittings
Due to its strength, flexibility and resistance to corrosion, stainless steel is the most ideal casting material for producing spider fittings. The selection of stainless steel casting grades for spider fittings can be 304 stainless steel, 316 stainless steel or 2205 duplex stainles steel.
304 Stainless Steel: The material composition of 304 stainless steel is most suitable in applications where it is not introduced to any harsh or severe treatments. The Chromium-nickel alloy of 304 stainless steel makes it somewhat durable and resistant to corrosion and oxidation, though much lower in comparison to 316 Marine Grade also when compared to 2205 Duplex.
316 Stainless Steel: When exposed to chloride and other chemical based environments such as salt water, 316 stainless steel shows a high resistance to corrosion, oxidation and heating as compared to 304 stainless steel. Furthermore, in comparison to 304 stainless steel, it is more durable, easier to fabricate, requires lower maintenance as it is easier to clean. 316 also hold the advantages of being easier to finish and weld.
2205 Duplex Stainless Steel: 2205 Duplex stainless steel combines most of the advantageous properties of ferritic and austenitic steels making it one of the highest grades of stainless steel casting. Due to the duplex nature of the stainless steel alloy, its Pitting and Crevice Corrosion Resistance provides a high resistance to corrosion in most chloride-based environments, giving it a high durability against chloride stress corrosion cracking. Apart from its lowest alloy, all Duplex 2205 stainless steels have much higher tensile strength and yield strength than both 304 and 316 Marine Grade stainless steel combined.
By comparision, the cost of 304 stainless steel for casting spider fittings is the lowest. But in terms of strength and corrosion resistance, 2205 duplex stainless steel is the best choice.
Why use CFS Company for Glass Spider Fittings?
Use CFS Company for your spider fittings project. WHY? Because our stainless steel investment casting process allows for a better surface finish , close tolerances and complex parts. You can also add lettering or numbers to your spider fittings. Stainless steel with CFS Company provides cost saving in material, labor and machining. Stainless steel casting provides you with tremendous design flexibility.
By choosing CFS Company, you’ll benefit from:
- CFS foundry is the direct stainless steel foundry for manufacturing spider fittings, we can customize any type spider fittings with reduced material and labour costs.
- We can control the dimensional tolerance as precision as CT5 level.
- A variety of stainless steel grades can be used to cast spider fittings.
- All the moulds for casting spider fittings from our company are automatic, which will greatly save the unit cost of spider fittings. What’s more, the lead time will be much shorter.
- Beside stainless steel casting, we can offer some value added services like mirror polishing, machining, etc, so that we can deliver finished spider fittings to our customers from all over the world.
- By locating in the second largest habour city in China, our clients can enjoy convenient water transportation for delivery spider fittings in both LCS (Less Container Shipping) and (Full Container Shipping) with less shipping cost and delivery time.
Contact us to learn more about how CFS Company can help you with your spider fittings or other glass hardwares (such as stainless steel glass spigot).