I had the box painted and spent months trying to figure out a way to squeeze the rivets without paying $300-400 for a rivet squeezer. I bought an old rivet squeezer for $85 on ebay when I first started my research. When it came in I realized I couldn't use it because it wasn't made to replace the dies for tubular rivets. The clamping part was flat on both ends. Then I bought a vintage rivet press for $30 on ebay because I noticed it had a dimple on one end and thinking that it was old it should press a tubular rivet. I was wrong about that as well, it did not have enough travel but would be perfect for brass snaps.
After spending weeks of researching different tools and not being able to justify spending hundreds of dollars to squeeze 12 rivets. I was working on an old bench vise i'm restoring for myself and while I was waiting on primer to dry I decided to try different methods in getting the rivets properly squeezed. Since the rivets come 100 to a pack I had plenty to get practice with. This is the method that ended up giving me the best result. I placed the bracket in its place and put masking tape to hold it and then put the two rivets in their place and put masking tape over the heads to hold them in place. place the toolbox face down on a brick paver covered by a towel with the rivet head on the ledge of the paver. I took a center punch to the tubular rivet and hit it about three times (not a lot of room inside the box) and you can feel the rivet expand. Then took a another center punch that was more blunt and rolled the rivet even more without splitting the rivet. Then I used a ballpeen hammer and flattened the rivet out.
I have an old Craftsman Rally Box with woodgrain on the drawers I am going to restore, but before I start on it, I am going to build a press that can utilize the standard rivet dies and be able to reach all the rivets on the box.
