I just got pair of Starrett #1 - 5-1/2 carbide tipped nippers. They look like this
Go there if you want new ones, I suppose.
The rivet sticks up from the surface on both sides about 1/16" or so and is completely flat. The ones I got had a rough life and have far more play than was acceptable due to the wear on the rivet. I ground it out with a die grinder with a bit of fuss.
The form was as expected, a rivet with a washer-ish side peened over on the other side with the connecting gap barely visible. They did a nice job blending it all together. It was not easy to tell which side to grind away at first. When I saw the gap I tried to break it out with an arbor press, but that did nothing at all.
The shaft of old rivet was quite worn and had a weird staggered offset to it. I machined a new one out of 1/2" 1018 round, and got a nice fit to the jaws. Next step is get the washer side in place and make it look good. My guess is the washer side should have a real tight fit and a radiused outside face where you peen the shaft over for a solid fit.
My question is, how do I do this and not bind up the tool? There was no shoulder or step on the original part to prevent the washer side from being pressed against the jaw too hard. There were also no antirotation type patterns like star shapes, cut-outs or anything like that. Was the washer heat fit by chance? I can get this tool mostly up and running the ugly way, buy really want to know what they did at the factory.
It's got to be similar magic to the joint in wire cutters of needle nose pliers. Not really sure how how they get such a precise fit.
The only other part I broke was a screw for one cutter. It's a 6-40 thread screw with a shoulder. Sort of a screwy item. If I jump in and make one of those is 1018 ok or is there something better to get for medium+ strength screws? I've made leaded steel screws and stuff like that, but none really needed any strength. This screws is available from starrett, but I'm sort of curious about how to just make it. The original one broke from being stretched too much. It turned greyish white and the threads popped off.