Hinge Rivets

"Bob La Londe" wrote in message news:v4q2pi$skkt$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me...

After Jim's suggestions to make my own tool box I started looking at low volume (as in physical space) methods of creating all the pivot points. The actual hinges of the box lids may need to be actual hinges. I'm not sure I have the ability with the tools I currently own to make slip rolled hinges from the sheet metal. They would need to be rolled quite small. I do have a spot welder so it might be a good place to look into learning to use it.

---------------------------------- I'd like to own a separate shear and finger brake but I lack the space, so when I ran a well equipped company model shop I experimented to see how little I could get away with at home. It came down to a 30" shear/brake/roll and hand tools like "seamer" pliers, a clone of the Roper #5 punch and layout tools. Punching is much neater than drilling sheetmetal, and the punch has a point to help align it in a layout dimple. Intersecting corners in a box should end in a small punched hole. A corner notcher is nice to have when folding trays and boxes, I bought one at auction, but it's not essential. . I've formed a hinge barrel around a rod in the bottom of a U bend by squeezing/hammering the folded flap shut, tightly up against the rod. This is easier and stronger than trying to roll up only the edge and leaves space for the spotwelds. I think the grooves in the 3-in-1's slip rollers could do it more neatly than I did with blocks of scrap, if I had planned the sequence of operations better. It helps to try your intended bends etc on scrap to be sure of machine clearances and limits. For instance I can't form a flange less than 1/2" wide with the press brake because a narrower one will slide down into the lower die. If I bend a narrower flange over an edge with a soft hammer the metal must be moved a little at a time from end to end or else it will stretch and warp the flange. Hammering on a piece of wood held against the flange works better than pounding directly on it, and sharpens the corner.

For the tray link pivots I might make the links thick enough to tap for short or cut-off machine screws, use hobby store brass tube as the pivot bushing and lightly peen or Loctite the end of the threads into the link. The OD of #5 screws is 1/8", #6 is 9/64" and #10 is 3/16". #8 may be slightly over 5/32", a tap will fit it. The heel of my small anvil is handy for riveting 3D shapes.

Sheet metal can be sheared with a cold chisel along the top edges of hardened vise jaws, preferably reversed to put their smooth back sides against the work. This is useful for cutouts. It can be milled by screwing it to plywood around the edges and through any/all existing holes.

Good luck!

Tiny little shoulder bolts might be a good option, but probably more expensive in cash to buy or time to make.

Have you looked at piano hinge? Cut to the length you require, it can come with or without hole for mounting.

Yeah I was thinking piano hinge or whatever equivalent I have laying around left over from repairing boat compartment doors for the roof/lid hinges. What I was more thinking about was the pivot points for the connecting links between the trays.

Yeah I was thinking piano hinge or whatever equivalent I have laying around left over from repairing boat compartment doors for the roof/lid hinges. What I was more thinking about was the pivot points for the connecting links between the trays. Bob La Londe

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The hardest part of my suggestion may be finding short enough screws. The brass tubing "shoulders" could be parted off quickly with a rod or drill bit inside to retain them and quick length setting with a ruler, as they can be a bit too long. Another possibility is undercutting the head, there's more than enough metal on a Phillips pan head to turn a step for sheetmetal. All the common number-size machine screws except #8 can be chucked in a fractional 5C collet. Even on my old leather-belt lathe with a handwheel collet closer, making one cut apiece in a dozen screws goes pretty quickly. Usually they are clearance cuts to eyeball accuracy.

I modify small screws in batches so I made cup shaped screw holders tapped for the sizes I use, up to 1/2" which was for battery mounting posts for a Segway project. The walls of the cup are about the length of a 5C gripping surface and the back is bored out to cut off protruding threads short. I cut a shallow groove near each end to make removing them from the collet easier.

The best one, which I've made only for 3/8-16 so far, was tapped full length, grooved on both ends for the O rings that keep it together, then sawed lengthwise in thirds to align with 5C slots or pairs of jaws on the

Shoulder bolts are certainly an option. I was hoping somebody here had experience with hinge rivets (not riveted hinges) so I could determine if it was something I wanted to mess with. I'll probably only ever make one tool box like this. An extra half hour or so probably doesn't matter for just one, but the knowledge, tools, and skills may be useful for other things.

I was hoping somebody here had experience with hinge rivets (not riveted hinges) so I could determine if it was something I wanted to mess with. I'll probably only ever make one tool box like this. An extra half hour or so probably doesn't matter for just one, but the knowledge, tools, and skills may be useful for other things. Bob La Londe

-------------------------------------- Sorry, I don't, they weren't an electronic hardware item. There are several electronic parts with tubular rivet bases but they don't handle much stress. Usually whatever I design and make can be disassembled after trial fitting, to paint, repair or modify.

These and competitors' cheaper copies are very useful on sheet metal, especially for blind assembly threaded holes in aluminum. .

I've headed a rivet with a hammer once or twice. Once you get over the initial trepidation its not to hard.

I made a rivet set with a half inch diameter dimple for heading rivets when I was forging tongs . One of these days I need to finish that set of "bolt tongs" I started .

I've headed a rivet with a hammer once or twice. Once you get over the initial trepidation its not to hard. Bob La Londe

------------------------------ I practiced riveting until I could form a symmetrical dome with a nice dimpled pattern with a ball pein hammer, without scarring the area around. I wanted to learn to make costume armor and got as far as a helmet and chainmail shirt.

Solid rivets are intended to expand to tightly fill the hole, which may be why all of the hinge rivets I've seen were tubular on the end. My attempts to expand the tubular part of shop-made rivets (pulley shafts) without deforming the solid section haven't been promising. Obviously they work, but not with any homebrew hammer setting method I've tried, such as conical center punches, or ball-end ones from a dapping set. Plan B was a custom shoulder screw or a sleeve on a standard screw, as I suggested. I backed away from rivets to avoid having to remove a bad one from otherwise finished work.

The undercut screw head was the easiest to make, with a parting bit so I could set the width with the lathe off after chucking the screw and control diameter with infeed. IIRC I set the width by eye to half the 1/16" thickness of the HSS bit. They were for antenna mast joints, not pivots.

The closest I came to making a successful tubular rivet set was a screw-together setting tool for 3/8" brass grommets, which I could use on a ladder for repairs to hanging tarps, such as aligning the grommets on old and new ones.

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This has a sketch of a tubular rivet setting punch.

This is a larger and more capable version. I bought mine used for much much less.

A ball end mill can serve as a lathe concave radius cutter. For a convex radius cutter I grind an HSS blank with a conical stone, which gives a circular arc with front edge relief. Usually the radius doesn't need to be a precise size.

The type of used bench punch I would not recommend for occasional one-off jobs uses four horizontal setscrews to carefully align the square die with the punch. Although it was quite capable the set-up time was too long, though I'd still buy one at the right low price.

The fuss, risk and tooling cost of riveting drove me to modifying standard hardware into shoulder screws etc where production could use rivets. I bought the proper tooling when the company would pay for it, at home I collect it second-hand or design and make my own.

I hope I didn't send you down the wrong path. Sheet metal work is fairly easy only with the right equipment, which I used industrially and acquired enough of at home.

I've headed a rivet with a hammer once or twice. Once you get over the initial trepidation its not to hard. Bob La Londe

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This is a very useful tool for trial assembly before riveting.