rivet gun

Look for a 4x

This is the only pop-riveter out of your three. It pulls the temporary shaft with head into the hollow rivet to deform it, and the head usually falls out after that. Common use is sheet metal-to-frame.

The two bottom items are 'air chisels' with riveting chisels included. They need to have the rivet head backed up by an anvil of some sort while the chisel deforms the solid rivet body. Common use is steel frame to steel frame. These are the much smaller versions of the big ones used on the Empire State Building. They used red hot rivets of large diameter.

Which style were you looking for, hollow or solid?

-- Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace. -- Robert J. Sawyer

Well ... first the question comes of whether you are trying to use hollow pop rivets (in which case the first item is what you want), or solid rivets (in which case the second is a good starting point, while the third is only a part of what you get in the second set. It is the air hammer, but not the spring which retains the tools, and not the formed rivet seating tools shown as the first few things below. The gun keeps driving the tool out at (according to the auction text) 3000 blows per minute.

The third one is just the gun -- minus the retaining spring, any rivet set tools, and all are missing the air fitting (which might have to be changed to fit your air system anyway).

You will also need a bucking bar for the solid rivets. it goes on the other side as a source of inertia. It can be any hard heavy chuck of metal.

These are solid rivets. Richard's tip to look for "4X" seems to be the ticket. I did a google search and the 1X to 9X rating refer to how hard the hammer hits the rivet. 4X sounds like about the right size for my needs.

Like anything on eBay, they go for $30 to $300. I need it by Feb. so I got time to snipe away at the bottom end.

Karl

thanks, just the ticket

What is that "4X"?

Send the owner a rivet and see if their machine compresses it to your specs? (Who knows? Maybe someone will actually do it!)

Time is always handy.

-- Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace. -- Robert J. Sawyer

I had to do a google search. The X number is the force of the gun hammer cycle. 1X to 3X for AL rivets mostly on planes, etc. 4X does

Karl

I'd also recommend a mechanical rivet squeezer... Very "handy"...

I was wondering about something like that. Maybe even models that had a deeper throat. Maybe even hydraulically powered. It would be worth it if you did a lot of rivets.

Steve

THE place to look for solid rivet tools, sets and bucking bars is the aircraft tool suppliers and surplus joints. You can get everything from just the set for a standard air hammer to a complete unit. Most are setup for aluminum rivets of various sorts, but you have a bunch of options on what you want the formed head to look like. Aircraft Spruce is one retailer, there was some place in Kansas that had a lot of surplus aircraft tooling from the local plants, too. They also have clecos and the cleco pliers, too, if you're doing extensive sheet metal work.

HF has an air over hydraulic pop riveter, wouldn't be my choice for production tooling, but it DOES work for home use. Would be a hand- saver with those nasty stainless pop rivets, just about ruined my hand one time doing just a few on some ag equipment with a cheap manual rivet puller.

Stan

in Wichita -- they have a PDF catalog I haven't looked at, but the items you mention also are listed in 'Browse Store' navigation bar topics like following.

# Rivet Accessories # Rivet Guns # Rivet Pullers # Rivet Sets # Rivet Shavers The Rivet Shaver selections are fairly sparse, only 14 different items.

The strike force is only one part of the question.

If you meant solid rivets--the cheap rivet gins are best used on steel rivets only, and have a simple on-off trigger. These are the $30 ones.

The 'aircraft" ones are for aluminum. They strike with the same force, but they have a variable-rate trigger (rivet hit rate) so you can slow the rate of strikes and do not overdrive softer non-steel rivets. These are the $300 ones.

The cheapie very-short throw air chisel I got from HF ($7 on sale) has a variable rate trigger. It varies from weak to wimpy, but I bought it for that. With sharpened gouges, it works well on wood for quick removal.

My Chicago Pneumatic (about $175 1975 dollars) long throw air chisel will take a big rig front end apart. It, too, has a variable rate trigger.

Anyway, the cheapies can be useful, too. Try before you buy if possible.

-- Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens. -- Jimi Hendrix