Riveting tool

There was a thread here earlier discussing solid rivets and various methods of setting them.

I have been using a ball peen hammer but that method has, in my hands, a number of limitations. Before I spent $$$ I made this vise attachment for use with 1/8" rivets:

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The results seem an improvement on hammering and there is less chance of marking the surrounding surfaces.

Michael Koblic, Campbell River, BC

Reply to
mkoblic
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Those rivets look like shit.

First, stop using a ballpeen hammer, use a narrow sharp cross peen to set your rivets. Use round face to finish.

Next get some decent rivet sets

The procedure is: Put the rivet through the hole. place head down on the anvil Scrub the two sheets together by lightly tapping the sheets together with a hammer to knock down any burs that might hold the sheets apart. Use the cross peen to flare and upset the rivet. Rotate the blows around the rivet (make Xs with the hammer blows) When the joint is tight and the rivet looks like a bunch of celery, use the set to round up the top and curl the edges back until it starts to look like an umbrella. Then use the round face hammer to set it down tight.

Finally, don't even dream of getting a matching round head on both sides of the rivet. On small rivets that involves hammering down a piece of wire that extends 3 diameters past the sheet.

Paul K Dickman

The single greatest labor saving device in the world is simply, doing the job right the first time.

Reply to
Paul K. Dickman

~Usually~ the "shop head", the head that you make with your hammer, is just a short cylindrical section. See

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The shop head on a 1/8" rivet, for example, is .160" (minimum) - .210" (maximum) in diameter and .040" - .080" in height.

Cheers, John B.

Reply to
John B.

Do not give up on setting rivets with hammers. I do not have a cross pein hammer to use as Paul Dickman recommends, But do have a selection of ball pein hammers. It helps to use a hammer that is not too heavy ( or too light ).

Dan

Reply to
dcaster

Yes, that is the theory. In practice (or *my* practice) it ends up as a badly mangled pancake (see pics). OTOH the dimensions are pretty much within these tolerances. It just looks like pig's breakfast and worse, one ends up with rather sharp edges of the said pancake.

Does not happen with the press.

Michael Koblic, Campbell River, BC

Reply to
mkoblic

I have both. It's not the hammer...:-)

Reply to
mkoblic

I went downstairs and hammered a head on a ~2mm dia aluminum Pop rivet shank, protruding 1/4" above the vise, to see how I hold my arm. The easiest hammer to control is a very old ball pein with a half pound head and a handle that narrows to 5/8" x 1/2" near the head. The grip is ~1" x 3/4". I couldn't control a newer, thicker one as well. My auto body hammers have the same narrow resilient shank.

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I could hammer around the edge of the head wth the pick hammer, but not as neatly.

The old one has its handle installed at a downward angle like a claw hammer instead of straight out like the usual ball pein. At least that's how I was taught to replace hammer handles.

jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

Gunner Asch fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Funny, that. My dad was into "inventing" in the 1950s, and decided to make an all-aluminum golf push-pull bag cart.

He bought a very nice assortment of rivet sets, which I still have today. They're nothing fancy, but are corrosion resistant (a few rust specks after all these years) yet very hard, and have nicely polished setting faces.

Lloyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

ided to make=20

Don't know about current stocking practices, but at one time, I could go in= to Orchard Hardware, have my pick of any number of solid rivet types in bin= s and the hand tools to set them. They can still be had from the likes of = Aircraft Spruce and the various surplus tool outfits to fit standard air ha= mmers, those will make a nice domed rivet head(if that's the profile wanted= , there are others). And the tooling is cheap.

Stan

Reply to
stans4

I use rivet sets for decorative stuff and when appearance counts. For the stuff out of the forge I have different sets but still use a hammer to do a rose head or octagonal set depending on the piece. For those who don't do it much a rose head is SUPER easy to do. First make 100% sure the joint is ready, Insert the rivet. Now to form the head, upset the rivet with one blow straight down the shank. This is the critical strike. Next is at either a 30 or 45 degree angle (depends on which item I'm making), Next another strike directly opposite that one. Now you do the remaining two sides the same way. When your done the rivet should look like a 4 petal flower, with a square center area.

The octagon is done the same but you add 4 more strikes to give a more rounded profile.

Reply to
Steve W.

Orchard Hardware, have my pick of any number of solid rivet types in bins and the hand tools to set them. They can still be had from the likes of Aircraft Spruce and the various surplus tool outfits to fit standard air hammers, those will make a nice domed rivet head(if that's the profile wanted, there are others). And the tooling is cheap.

I am waiting for the Aircraft Spruce "product specialist" to come back to work (was supposed to be today but no luck). The guy I spoke to last week had only a vague idea about the tools.

I am thinking of getting one of their $75 squeezers if it can do a good job with the steel 1/8" roundheads.

Sometimes it just is not possible to hammer at the rivet if they are part of a structure that does not allow proper access. An option would be one of the air hammers (they come in kits with bucking bars etc.) It would enable one to use bigger rivets if one so chose in future but I suspect that in my hands they will not be a free lunch either (by free here I mean $200+).

Michael Koblic, Campbell River, BC

Reply to
mkoblic

SNIP>

More SNIP

Hey Mike,

Be sure to question Aircraft Spruce as to whether one of their tools can do "steel" rivets. I used their stuff to do aluminum rivets in planes, but don't recall doing any steel that way.

Brian Lawson, Bothwell, Ontario.

ps...Aircraft Spruce opened a branch office in Brantford, Ontario, a few years ago. Not big enough to stock all that they offer though, at least not when they opened.

Reply to
Brian Lawson

One of the reasons to talk to the "product specialist".

The very branch I am trying to deal with I think.

Michael Koblic, Campbell River, BC

Reply to
mkoblic

[...]

And here is the answer: "I do not know if either the squeezers or the guns will work on steel rivets, we have no experience with them".

So, back to shopping in the States...

Michael Koblic, Campbell River, BC

Reply to
mkoblic

Maybe chuck a grade 8 bolt in your little lathe and carve a rivet-head-shaped recess in the end?

jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

Mikey, here in the States, you'll get answers like "I don't know. I've never used a rivet thingy before."

or

"My coworker says it should work."

or

"I speak very English!" in a deeply Indian accent, followed by "I am just a telephone answering person. I will pass this up the line to the technical department, sir or madam. They will be in contact with you in no more than six weeks."

or

"Sheeit, how the hell do I know?"

They just inspire confidence in the companies, don't they?

Even the great McMaster employees gave me a less than acceptable answer regarding shipping. "I don't know. We can't see those screens in our software. Once you order, the email regarding its shipment will contain the price of the shipping. It's not very much, though, maybe fifteen dollars at most." This was when I ordered the 4 adjustable leveling feet for my CNC router table. Shipping was $4 on an $11 order, and they were heavier than I had expected.

-- Win first, Fight later.

--martial principle of the Samurai

Reply to
Larry Jaques

To be fair, I contacted a US branch of the same company and received one of the response versions you have listed.

BTW I, too, hate it when the company is unable to tell you the shipping costs before you place the order. Here the shipping costs are often the deciding factor.

OTOH there are some companies in the States (e.g Rio Grande) who worked out that you can ship small items without charging 4 times the cost of the item in shipping (I was once asked to pay $21 shipping for a $5 packet of epee tip screws).

Michael Koblic, Campbell River, BC

Reply to
mkoblic

Right, but what do I do with it then? Turn the shank to 0.401" and stick it in a cheap air hammer? Would that work?

Reply to
mkoblic

Want to save time? Hit the local cheap tool place and buy a handful of the longest shank air hammer bits they have. Take them home, chuck them in the lathe and cut the tool tip section off the shank. Now grind/turn the cut end into a rivet heading tool. Turn the outer diameter down so you have a thin lip around the set. This is so you don't mar the workpiece if you use a shorter rivet or hit off axis.

Take a look at this one to see what I mean.

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Reply to
Steve W.

Right. But I still need to get an air gun of some sort. This is where I am running into problems. E.g. the 3x gun in the link is probably too weak to set 1/8" steel rivets (or so I am told).

Michael Koblic, Campbell River, BC

Reply to
mkoblic

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