Radial Riveting Machines

Rivets are small pieces of metal that are crushed into position between two harder pieces of metal. The resulting rivet holds the two pieces of metal together. Rivets can be made out of almost anything, but are usually made out of aluminum or steel. Welds are created when you melt two pieces of metal together, sometimes with a filler material.

Brazing is when you take two pieces of metal with a high melting point and join them by heating a small amount of metal between them that has a lower melting point. Brazes have problems when temperatures reach the softening or melting points of the brazing material, and they are not commonly used for modern cookware handles. Screwed-on handles use a screw to fasten the handle to the actual cooking vessel. You typically only see this design on cheaper cookware or on high-end European cookware (which often use multiple stainless steel screws per handle). Some people think screws look tacky. Screws are cheap but effective, and you can tighten the screw yourself. If the screw rusts due to being made from an inferior grade of stainless steel, you can replace the screw yourself. However, this is usually a hassle since you have to find or make a screw of the correct length. Nevertheless, at least it is a user-replaceable part, unlike welds and rivets and brazes.

It’s possible to form the handle of cookware as an extension of the body of the cookware itself, such as with cast iron pans. While the resulting handles may be strong, the drawback is that the pan handle gets hot when used, as a result of being made out of the same, heat-conductive material as the body. Judging by the paucity of welded handles in USA-made cookware, Americans seem to believe that rivets are more durable than welds, but that is a) not necessarily true, and b) it doesn’t necessarily matter. Depending on weld quality and rivet quality, either can be stronger than the other, but the real question is whether they are strong enough for kitchen cookware. We are discussing cookware, It doesn’t matter if rivets can be made stronger than welds if even a weld job is more than enough to get the job done–and welds can definitely get the job done. A lot of professional restaurant cookware vessels have no rivets, and they see far harsher conditions than cookware in residential kitchens. Edit