News & insight

Fastening SMC panels:  As part of our R&D partnership with Cranfield University, we have produced a demonstration mould tool that shows how bigHeads can be embedded into that trickiest of materials and processes, sheet moulding compound (SMC), without any ingress of resin into the fixing.  Furthermore, our embedding solution is a one-step process that removes the need for any secondary…

The value of talking to industry colleagues face to face was made very apparent at JEC World 2022. Virtual meetings and conferences have been a life-line during recent times but the ability to demonstrate new techniques and let people have a ‘hands-on’experience is invaluable. Thank you to everyone who visited our stand. We gained such a lot from all of…

At last – JEC World 2022! May 3-5th. There will be a lot to share and discuss given the three intervening years since JEC World 2019. We know that we have a lot to talk about anyway! Visit our stand to discover our solutions and latest innovations for composite material fastening challenges. As the leading trade show for the industry,…

We are very pleased to announce that Oli le Marquand-Brown has joined the bigHead® Bonding Fasteners team as Development Engineer. Oli joins from Cranfield University where he was a Research Assistant and completed a master’s degree in Automotive Engineering. Oli conducted extensive research on the use of commercially viable thermoplastic and recycled carbon fibre reinforced polymers and was awarded IMechE…

Fastening composite material presents many challenges, all of which can be overcome by careful selection of the correct solution. There are many solutions and this in itself presents another challenge. Bossard has compiled a White paper on bonding. DOWNLOAD BOSSARD WHITE PAPER ON BONDING  Bossard’s White Paper ‘Fastening solutions for composites and plastics’ introduces a selection of technologies and gives…

You may not consider bigHead composite bonding fasteners as one of your key design tools – but we’d like to argue that they are! They may seem small and inconsequential – until you need to think about joining materials together. Securing the components in your design whilst you try to satisfy multiple conditions probably causes quite a few headaches. Perhaps…

Light-weighting no longer means simply moving from steel to aluminium or magnesium. Today’s light-weighted products need structural materials that are lighter still. Wafer-thin sheets of metal, composite materials with glass or carbon fibre, and hybrid structures are the materials that designers increasingly work with. Joining these materials together in ways that meet the design specification can present challenges. Some materials…

At bigHead we find that global projects increasingly follow a familiar pattern; design and development in Europe where costs are high, transition to China for volume production.  Such global manufacturing is complex, requiring not just the accurate transfer of knowledge and expertise but the management of different cultures and expectations. As part of the Bossard Group, bigHead is well placed to ensure that…

We are looking forward to presenting bigHead Lean Bonding at ‘Joining in Car Body Engineering 2021  –Detroit meets Bad Neuheim’, 19-22nd April. We will be presenting an exciting Lean Bonding update – Lean Bonding PP – together with Powdertech Surface Science.  Joining technology is at the centre of technical discussions as the automotive industry transforms and embraces advanced mixed material concepts. Both the US and European conferences will take place virtually, forming an all-virtual Automotive Circle Joining in…

bigHead is very pleased to have achieved carbon neutral status for 2019 and 2020!   We started to focus on sustainability in 2019 and at that point we had no idea what our carbon footprint was. Now we are now measuring it and doing something about it.  bigHead is starting to take responsibility for its part in the climate crisis.  Finding ways to reduce emissions In 2019 we…