My work experience at Thomas Smith Fasteners

Hi, my name is Annabel and I’m in my second year at Lancaster University. During my three month Summer break, Thomas Smith Fasteners gave me the opportunity to work for them full time in the Sales office. During my time here, I have gained some valuable skills that I can transfer both into my studies and my future career.  

During my time at Thomas Smith Fasteners, I processed sales orders, communicated with customers over the phone and via email, and answered customer queries about the services we provide. This boosted my confidence and ability to communicate in a professional and efficient manner, whilst still maintaining a rapport with the customers to boost sales and improve customer experience.  

I also frequently created purchase orders and conversed with suppliers on at least a weekly basis. This required me to attentively keep an eye on our stock levels and use my initiative when deciding when to order stock and how much money to spend.  

Maths has always been a weaker skill for me, but my experience at Thomas Smith Fasteners has greatly improved this. In my role, I calculated gross profit, completed our end-of-day banking every day, and used bulk prices to calculate the price of an individual item. These tasks have boosted an essential skill that I can transfer into other roles, my studies, and everyday life. 

Moreover, my role included a lot of marketing and outreach work. I experimented social media marketing, sending out emails to prospect customers and ringing past customers to discuss their needs. 

I am extremely lucky and privileged to have been given this opportunity to work in a busy, fast-paced workplace during my university Summer break. Thank you to Thomas Smith Fasteners for allowing me to gain an insight into how businesses work, and I would love to be back someday! 

UNJEF 12 Point Screws

Another weird and wonderful order was received recently for some 12 Point Flange Nuts and Screws in Black Oxide for the aerospace industry.The customer specified UNJEF thread which is a very unusual thread form. UNJEF are ultra fine pitch threads. The thread accuracy is referred to as a 3B class of fit or a 2B class of fit.Normally we take days to complete our standard jobs, but this part took 3 weeks due to its complexity.#engineering #fasteners #manufacturing

Bolts For Historical Guns on a War Ship

Everyday is a learning day here at Thomas Smith Fasteners.

A couple of weeks ago, we received a unique request to manufacture some ‘historical gun bolts’ for an old war ship which is now a floating museum.

At first, we did not know what these bolts were, but after more communication with the customer, we matched them to 1/2 BSW x 1 Slotted Dome Head Brass Bolts.

2 weeks later we had them manufactured and delivered to the customer.

#engineering #manufacturing #fasteners

BSW A4-80 STAINLESS BOLTS

We recently manufactured for a client in Portugal some 1 Bsw x 5 5/8 A4-80 Hex Bolts.

A4-80 Stainless grade is common with metric bolts but not on imperial bolting. Our sister company Smith Bullough, were able to manufacture these in imperial BSW threadform without any issues.

These bolts were also supplied with raw material certification and a 3.1 cert.

Another satisfied customer!

TSF sponsors a local running event

Thomas Smith Fasteners were delighted to sponsor a local running race which was held in Astley on Sunday 23rd October. The event named “Gin Pit 5” is a popular trail race. 200 runners from running clubs from all the over the North West took part. Congratulations to Michael Hampson of Burnden Road Runners and Laura Riches of Leigh Harriers who won their repsective races.

EN8 BSF Bar Turned Nuts “Made in the UK”

We deal with a wide range of customers from the DIY expert to high end blue chip companies looking for top quality products from standard mild steel to exotic materials. Thomas Smith Fasteners is a unique company as we are both a stockist and a manufacturer which gives us capacity to supply more or less any fastener.

Our supply range of fasteners is huge with customers based in the motor industry. Particularly the Classis Car restoration sector, where customers are looking for the highest quality products.

BSF / BSW / BA were used in many known expensive Classic Cars and are in short supply in the UK. We pride ourselves of being to supply these parts either from our vast range of stocks or manufactured in house.

Take a look at the BSF bar turned single chamfered nuts we recently manufactured to a customer drawing in Chemical Black. These are the bees knees of nuts!