Common Uses for Metal Shims

There are very good reasons to use round metal shims. We’ve found that the following are three of their most common uses.

Wheel Alignment

When you are driving down a straight, flat road and your tires have the right amount of air in them and take your hands off the steering wheel for a few seconds, your vehicle should keep traveling on a straight line. If you take your hands off the steering wheel and your vehicle starts to drift to the right or to the left, you probably need to have your wheels aligned. Besides indicating that something is either wearing out, broken or missing, an alignment that is off causes unnecessary wear and tear to your vehicle. There is always the possibility that traveling on dirt roads, living in a dusty place, or having some stray paint between the axles of the car and the wheel hub are the reasons for your wheels being out of alignment. Once you eliminate those things as the cause, round metal shims can be used to get your alignment back in order.

Some home mechanics might opt to use a shim they make themselves. In this case, the shims might be made out of plastic, cardboard, aluminum, or wood, which are materials they might readily have in their garage. The problem with using shims that are not stainless steel is that they will not do the job or fit as well as the stainless steel kind. Once the thickness is determined, that is needed to bring the wheels back into optimal alignment, rather than using multiple thin shims, it is better to use thicker shims and less of them.

Working Assemblies

Another very important use for these small metal parts is to control vibration and shock in all different kinds of working assemblies. One example is their use in wind turbines to control the vibration that commonly occurs in their generators and gear boxes. Wear and fatigue can be a big problem for the wind turbine parts that are constantly rotating, and these shims act as a preventative measure. When reactors and transformers are used as part of industrial processes, they tend to be noisy and vibrate. Shims are used to control the noise and to reduce the movement which allows these machines to need fewer repairs and fewer replacements.

Equipment that Needs to Last

Stainless steel shims are excellent at resisting corrosion, which makes them the top choice for medical equipment that needs to be sterile and contaminate free. When an industry needs a shim that will stand the test of time, they choose stainless steel shims. The construction industry wants a product that they can use in the building of structures that will resist rust and corrosion so that what they build will last a very long time without the need to tear down the structure to replace its parts. For industries that function outside in the elements, using a shim that won’t degrade is imperative. The military wants equipment they can count on for their durability and strength. They can’t afford to have equipment that is unreliable and defective.