Question: What is a button set?

[John Timmins]

Here is some trivia. What kind of tool is a button set? What is is used for?

I will give everybody a day to guess what it is and then tell you.

I went to sea for 30 years and this is a tool on a ship, at least that is the only place I've heard that name.

DaytonaJohn

 

[Uncle Buck]

It is a rivett set used to secure button rivetts to the ships hull and boiler plate and the like.

 

[Junkman]

The only button set that I ever encountered was at work. We would take molten metal and pour it into the button set and allow it to cool. Then we would open it up, and put the button on a gram scale. The scale would measure the specific gravity of the button to determine the content of the base metal and the impurities. It is hard to describe, but it had to weigh a specific amount to be considered virgin lead. If it was higher or lower, that meant that it had to have additional cleaning of the molten metal. This was 40 years ago, when lead was commonly used in industry. Probably not the button set that you are referring to..

 

[NAYLOR]

The only button set that I ever encountered was at work. We would take molten metal and pour it into the button set and allow it to cool. Then we would open it up, and put the button on a gram scale. The scale would measure the specific gravity of the button to determine the content of the base metal and the impurities. It is hard to describe, but it had to weigh a specific amount to be considered virgin lead. If it was higher or lower, that meant that it had to have additional cleaning of the molten metal. This was 40 years ago, when lead was commonly used in industry. Probably not the button set that you are referring to..

I think what you are referring to is simply called a button. Any good foundry pours one with each heat, runs a spectograph on it, and saves it and all its test data.

 

[John Timmins]

A button set is a sledge hammer with about 1/2 of the handle sawn off to make it shorter.

I sailed deep sea in the merchant marine as an engineer. When I was about 21 and an apprentice engineer, the old timers called it that. You needed a short handle to swing the hammer to harden up nuts while you were working inside the crancase of the steam engines. I believe the "buttoms" were main bearing nuts.

I have seen a guy get a brand new sledge hammer and cut the handle off first thing.

I was interested to read that it was a tool used for riviting hulls.

 

[russlaferrera]

A button set is a sledge hammer with about 1/2 of the handle sawn off to make it shorter.

I sailed deep sea in the merchant marine as an engineer. When I was about 21 and an apprentice engineer, the old timers called it that. You needed a short handle to swing the hammer to harden up nuts while you were working inside the crancase of the steam engines. I believe the "buttoms" were main bearing nuts.

John, could you explain the term "harden up the nuts" and why one would do so?

 

[John Timmins]

Sorry. Harden up means tighten.

In the past, large nuts, say 4,5, or 6 inches diameter were tightened by placing a big slugging wrench on the nut and hitting the end of the wrench with a "button set". How hard you tightened the nut was either guesswork or experience. You could tighten propeller shaft bearings or engine main bearings too tight. Sometimes measurements were taken with depth gages.

What is torque anyway? As you tighten a nut with a torque wrench, what you are really doing is measuring how much you are stretching the bolt which is pulling the part into place.

The diesels I worked on mostly were 4000 HP per cylinder. How we tighten a nut on a 4 inch diameter stud:

Install the washer if there is one. Spray a light coating of molycote...never put too much - things will stick too much later. People tend to use way too much of this stuff)

put the nut on hand tight. notice that there is about 2-3 inches of extra threads.

screw the provided hydraulic jack designed for this, on the extra threads. pump up the jack to the designed pressure. notice that the stud has stretched and that the nut is not seated anymore.

using the holes in the hydraulic pump covering the nut, reach in and retighten the nut hand tight again. release the hydraulic pressure and the nut is tight and torqued.

on a cylinder head you might tighten 10 nuts at the same time with 10 jacks connected to one pump by 10 hoses. Pump up to the recommended pressure. everything gets tightened at the same time.

-hope that one of the jacks does not blow out it's seals or hose break when you are doing this. (engine rooms can be very scary places)
-hope that one of those 4 foot long cylinder studs does not snap. when it does it is always down inside the threaded part of the block.

We can change these with the engine running; it is not fun

 

[ephotrod]

Can we see pictures? THis sound like real fun stuff. I know i personally would like to see pictures of the engine room and the motors and parts and tools.
Josh

 

[dxdexter]

A button set is a sledge hammer with about 1/2 of the handle sawn off to make it shorter.

.

Contractors around here use them all the time for close in work, in fact I have one in my garage. I just didn't know what it was called. I just thought it was a sledge hammer with the handle sawed in half.

 

[eschoendorff]

Can we see pictures? THis sound like real fun stuff. I know i personally would like to see pictures of the engine room and the motors and parts and tools.
Josh

I want to second this motion... we need some pictures!

 

[Uncle Buck]

A button set is a sledge hammer with about 1/2 of the handle sawn off to make it shorter.

I sailed deep sea in the merchant marine as an engineer. When I was about 21 and an apprentice engineer, the old timers called it that. You needed a short handle to swing the hammer to harden up nuts while you were working inside the crancase of the steam engines. I believe the "buttoms" were main bearing nuts.

I have seen a guy get a brand new sledge hammer and cut the handle off first thing.

I was interested to read that it was a tool used for riviting hulls.

While not correct it still seemed a logical explanation, working on a ship, and there are rivetts known as button heads so I just assumed from your question that must be the application for that type of rivett. Check it out, so as I said, it seemed like a logical guess at the time.

 

[nissan_crawler]

On planes, we have button head rivets, but the sets are just usually referred to by size, as in "do you have a #5 rivet set?". It's assumed button head, as the countersunk rivets sets don't go by the size of rivet. Technically though, it would be a button head set.

 

[Frank Elson]

all these years I didn't know why so many railway fitters cut the handle of a sledge short...

But why not just use a 4lb lump hammer?

 

[eschoendorff]

all these years I didn't know why so many railway fitters cut the handle of a sledge short...

But why not just use a 4lb lump hammer?

The 4lb hammers that I have seen are surprising expensive. Might be cheaper to buy a sledge and cut it....

 

[Frank Elson]

Lump hammers are not expensive here in the UK.
at least, I don't think they are. The three I have are 30 years old at least.
A quick Google showed me UK prices of £3.99 to £5.99 that would be roughly $8 - $12.

BTW a mate gave me a sledge hammer some years ago - we use them to hammer in ground anchors when off-roading - and I had o give it back as I couldn't lift it, let along swing it
The sledge I do have and still use is well over 50 years old.

 

[John Timmins]

Hi. Here's where a button set comes in handy.

Readers of this thread have asked to see some engine room pictures and I will do some in the future. So until then check these out:

To get an idea of the size of these engines and the close spaces to work in, go to Google and type in Youtube. Once there watch these movies:

Re: B+W Double acting 2 cycle @ Diesel House Copenhagen

Hansa Papenburg crash stop astern

The first movie shows the double acting diesel made in 1932; this design has fuel burning on both sides of the piston. This engine weighs 1500 tons.

The second movie shows a modern B+W engine starting on a new ship. The technician is putting a pressure guage on #7 cylinder and reading the cylinder pressure (PMax). His hand is on a braided line. It is a hydraulic line that sends pressure to open that cylinder's exhaust valve. The smaller 2 inch braided line is high pressure fuel to open the 3 or 4 fuel injectors each cylinder has. Watch what happens when they suddenly back off the throttle from full speed to stop. They did this on purpose to test the engine.

Sometimes in a storm the propeller comes out of the water, the engine races and overspeeds and the engine stops. The turbocharger, the big silver thing, still spinning 12000 rpm blows backwards and scares the **** out of you. I have seen a turbo do this 2-300 times and fortunately the rotor never came through the casing.

Again, I say, engine rooms can be real scary places.

 

[speed bump]

all these years I didn't know why so many railway fitters cut the handle of a sledge short...

But why not just use a 4lb lump hammer?

Why would you use a 4lb hammer when you can use a 8+lb hammer. I know when I was working at a mine I used an 8lb sledge with a short handle all day long becuase you could get in and work on stuff with it without spending all day beating on it like you would with a 4lber.

I also met a guy one time that didn't need his handles cut down. He could run two 20lb sledge hammers at the same time for 2+hrs straight.