Solid Rivets Teach me the way

[grego]

I purchased a lagre wooden box at a garage sale and inside it has a ton of regular rivets and all these different sized solid rivets.

What tools do you need to use these, is there a plier type tool or c clamp type? Do you just hit them with a drift and a hammer?

Any pictures or videos would be great.

 

[machine_punk]

I'm in the middle of preparing a thread called "Solid Rivets 101." Watch for it soon. Here are a couple of my solid rivet projects...

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=117181

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=115154

Kev

 

[ZRX61]

Last time someone asked me to show em how it's done I knocked this out...

 

[dittle fart around]

I think you get the rivets red hot then use a jack hammer to put them in steel. At least that's what I've seen on the History Channel.

 

[bradweingartner]

Good video of the basic idea. Air Rivet hammer on one side (The side with the head) and a dolly on the back to flatten it out.

 

[t100]

the process is called "bucking"
an aviation air hammer and rivet sets(anvil) to fit that hammer, bucking bars.

hard rivets come in different sizes and hardness.

here is some info:
http://www.aircraftspruce.com/menus/ha/rivets.html

 

[J.Lind]

Beautiful work, ZRX61.

First time I bucked a rivet it wasn't as hard as I expected, but definitely wasn't easy either. So simple to bounce the dolly and leave a mark, or the air hammer slips off.

Lots of fun, though. Considering I never did it to make money, I bet it gets real old real fast

 

[mrb]

I think you get the rivets red hot then use a jack hammer to put them in steel. At least that's what I've seen on the History Channel.

actually i think someone else gets the rivet red hot then he throws it at you

 

[larry_g]

There are many types of rivets, materials, and intended uses. My use of rivets is to put sicyle sections on a cutter bar for the combine. These can be set with a screw clamp or piened over with a ball pien hammer against a backer on the head. So you may want to be a bit more specific on size and material of the rivets you have. Rivets are used in many different industries and how there set varies with the industry.

lg
no neat sig line

 

[iron_worker]

Why would you want to rivet a sickle to the cutter bar? Where I'm from a sickle change happens quite often and riveting it on ther just seems silly. Old design?

I was dealing with an almost new 8120 Case Combine. Great machine.

IW

 

[Buckgnarly]

Why would you want to rivet a sickle to the cutter bar? Where I'm from a sickle change happens quite often and riveting it on ther just seems silly. Old design?

I was dealing with an almost new 8120 Case Combine. Great machine.

IW

My BCS hand tractor uses rivets on the sickle bar.....which reminds me I have to replace a few this Fall...

 

[greaseyjockey]

actually i think someone else gets the rivet red hot then he throws it at you

At least that's what I've seen in cartoons.... lol

 

[NASTYZEN]

Last time someone asked me to show em how it's done I knocked this out...

That right there covers all kinds of aspects of putting something together. Cool!
What about the tools you used to buck all of those? It would be nice to see.
Thank's.

 

[diesel research]

We had a guy who would set rivets 1 handed with a snap on ph3050a air hammer. Needless to say he ended up with some kind of tendonitis or something. He is only about 5'4" so the amount of force to keep an automotive air hammer steady is pretty great.

His logic was a proper rivet setting hammer was more controllable, but slower. I think he didn't know they made rivet setters more powerful than 3x...

 

[Milton Shaw]

The Golden Gate bridge is put together with Rivets, the kind that were heated red hot, thrown, caught, put into holes, bucked and riveted. The hot rivets burned the paint on the beams and workers got lead poisoning from the fumes. They were using Red Lead Primer on the original bridge. Used air riveters are available on Ebay all the time look under aircraft tools. A lot of the rivets are countersunk so the head is not in the air stream creating drag on airplanes. They use a microstop cage to countersink the hole before they rivet (look on EBay for microstop to see what I am talking about, it's a very accurate countersink drill guide. Most of the iron, aluminum, metal work before WWII was riveted as welding was not in use much before WWII.

 

[mrobins297aaa]

when I started in the sheetmetal trade in 1967 solid rivets or tinners rivets as we called them were on there way out in favor of pop rivets and drill screws. you used either a stake or if that was not possible you had some one on the other side bucking the rivets with a dolly block. And then you finished them off with a rivet set. The tool has a hole for drawing the rivet thru the metal and then a cup like dish that you set the rivet to get the nice round finish. each set has a number on it for the size rivet you are using.
see the attached pic's

 

[theoldwizard1]

Good video on aircraft riveting.

The video below shows a manual rivet "squeezer", a pneumatic one and a pneumatic-hydraulic one

http://youtu.be/QTmvwJJKR_U

 

[5lima30]

I've seen small snow plow blades that had the wear bar riveted with solid rivets.

 

[theoldwizard1]

actually i think someone else gets the rivet red hot then he throws it at you

While we have all seen that in cartoons, it was REAL in the early part of the last century.

What I think is interesting is today the iron workers working on high rise buildings that are erecting the beams only put in a few bolts, hand tight. After the floor is complete, another crew comes in with come-a-longs and gets all the beams plumb, square and straight and then inserts the rest of the bolts and torques them to spec.

 

[GirlnAgarage]

In my work I use copper rivets and washers. Use an anvil and a hammer to dome them and set them. Don't know much more than that.

 

[grego]

Thank you all for the insight, ZRX61, that is beautiful work. I would love to get to a point where I could make gastanks and covers for my hotrods and shop equipment and have it turn out like that. I will start searching for the tools and get started. It seems that you need a lot of practice and patience get it to come out clean and leave no marks.
The mind is racing with projects.
I will take some pictures and measurements of the rivets I have so that we can narrow down the techniques.
Thanks again everyone.

 

[ZRX61]

That right there covers all kinds of aspects of putting something together. Cool!
What about the tools you used to buck all of those? It would be nice to see.
Thank's.

I have pics of some of the stuff... don't seem to have a pic of my 3X gun tho. The sneaky part is what appears to be 4 pieces of 90deg angle on that display piece actually aren't 90deg at all & they also have different radius

 

[theoldwizard1]

Last time someone asked me to show em how it's done I knocked this out...

First, the riveting and rest of the fab looks awesome !

I know nothing about aircraft design, but I have 2 questions, that may or may not be relevant if this is just an example piece.

This looks like part of a wing, so ...

• Wouldn't the "open" seam at the top cause a lot of turbulence as the air traveled over it ?
• On the overlapping seam on the bottom shouldn't the trailing piece be stepped in so the leading edge (curved) piece can mate flush with no bump ?

 

[Ritter4.0]

I think thats a wing for a sprint or rally car type thing, not aircraft.

 

[ZRX61]

First, the riveting and rest of the fab looks awesome !

I know nothing about aircraft design, but I have 2 questions, that may or may not be relevant if this is just an example piece.

This looks like part of a wing, so ...

• Wouldn't the "open" seam at the top cause a lot of turbulence as the air traveled over it ?
• On the overlapping seam on the bottom shouldn't the trailing piece be stepped in so the leading edge (curved) piece can mate flush with no bump ?

Thanks
It was just a rough "this is how it's done" deal. The overlapping part of it was to show how to joggle the skin with a brake is all. It's actually quite small, it's only 12in wide & 4 or 5in tall. If it was going on an actual aircraft it would be better (& a lot bigger).

 

[NASTYZEN]

Thanks ZRX61. I see that you need all kinds of bucking bars for all the nooks n crannies an airplane has...
Fortunately what I have to do is pretty accessible. My worries is that I will be using an air hammer for the job.Iv'e done one of these before and it turned out well. Just don't like the possibilities of leaving air hammer tracks on some thing I've spent so much time on as this.
Only about 25% of the riveting is solid the rest are pull type.

I got all the bits from the platers this week. I am almost ready to assemble three of these soon.
Do Aircraft assemblies use structural glue? I have used T-88 glue on all previous tubs. I would prefer a more urathany type bond. It seems the bond is not that good where it's oily or when the joint gets knocked around for a long time.

 

[ZRX61]

They do use glue for structures, but it's not used on the stuff I work on. Use PRC for sealing fuel tanks tho, thats about as close to glue as I get.

 

[coldfusion21]

^ that's sure neat looking but I'm just not seeing it... What is it exactly?

Some great looking metal work in this thread!

 

[hunter1151]

Thanks ZRX61. I see that you need all kinds of bucking bars for all the nooks n crannies an airplane has...
Fortunately what I have to do is pretty accessible. My worries is that I will be using an air hammer for the job.Iv'e done one of these before and it turned out well. Just don't like the possibilities of leaving air hammer tracks on some thing I've spent so much time on as this.
Only about 25% of the riveting is solid the rest are pull type.

I got all the bits from the platers this week. I am almost ready to assemble three of these soon.
Do Aircraft assemblies use structural glue? I have used T-88 glue on all previous tubs. I would prefer a more urathany type bond. It seems the bond is not that good where it's oily or when the joint gets knocked around for a long time.

Are you using 3003 or 5052 on that tub??

 

[NASTYZEN]

are you using 3003 or 5052 on that tub??

6061t-4

 

[ZRX61]

^ that's sure neat looking but I'm just not seeing it... What is it exactly?

Some great looking metal work in this thread!

The dohicky that Nastyzen posted? It looks like a monococque tub for a race car.

 

[ZRX61]

A lot of the smilies & dings left by rivet guns can be prevented just by sticking a bunch of rivets in the holes & then taping them in place with blue masking tape. They do actually sell a *special* tape for holding rivets in place, but 3M blue works just as well & costs a LOT less..

There's a 2x3ft panel that I bashed about 750 ****** rivets into for a instructor at a local college so she could then have it painted up with WWII looking nose art. I should go get a photo of that sometime...It was just a rush/freebie job so I didn't even bother to put any shape into the panel (which I think was about .090 thick). Seem to recal several different sizes of both AN470 & AN426's.

AC43-13 has all ya need to know to get started with rivet bashing. It's a DOT/FAA publication

 

[ZRX61]

First time I bucked a rivet it wasn't as hard as I expected, but definitely wasn't easy either. So simple to bounce the dolly and leave a mark, or the air hammer slips off.

Lots of fun, though. Considering I never did it to make money, I bet it gets real old real fast

Worse was bashing 1/4in(?) steel rivets into Browning M2 side plates on the receivers. That got old REAL fast. Only rebuilt a few of those (less than 30), but that few was WAY more than enough.

 

[NASTYZEN]

^ that's sure neat looking but I'm just not seeing it... What is it exactly?

It's the sister car to this one. The serial numbers are consecutive.That does not happen very often.

1972 Lola T-360 Formula Atlantic.Capable of around 180 mph.

 

[theoldwizard1]

In my work I use copper rivets and washers. Use an anvil and a hammer to dome them and set them. Don't know much more than that.

Re-reading this, I would love to see some of your work.

 

[hunter1151]

Here is one........military aircraft rib. Will be using DD rivets, they are shipped as heat treated rivets 2024-T4, they must be sent back to heat treat before installation, and put in the AQ condition, kept in a freezer at -10F, taken out of freezer and squeezed and left to assume room temperature, which takes it back up to T-4. What a pain in the azz...........

All parts were made in house, shrunk the angle and T-extrusion to curve, sent the T out for joggle, made the form block for the "former" at the nose, and hydro-formed with 2400 ton hydro press. And people wonder why airplanes cost so much.

 

[gymbo39]

with all the posts here i thought someone may have told the story. whether squeezing with a rivet squeezer or shooting the rivet with a rivet gun and using a bucking bar, the proper way is to expand the rivet one and one half times the diameter of the rivet shaft with one and one half the diameter protruding through the rivet hot hole. typically rivets have to be trimmed to the desired length prior to setting the rivet.

 

[hunter1151]

with all the posts here i thought someone may have told the story. whether squeezing with a rivet squeezer or shooting the rivet with a rivet gun and using a bucking bar, the proper way is to expand the rivet one and one half times the diameter of the rivet shaft with one and one half the diameter protruding through the rivet hot hole. typically rivets have to be trimmed to the desired length prior to setting the rivet.

Yes what you say is true, but we are held to **** spec standards that are different with each aircraft company...........They list the heighth and the diameter of the ****.

 

[ZTFab]

Here is one........military aircraft rib. Will be using DD rivets, they are shipped as heat treated rivets 2024-T4, they must be sent back to heat treat before installation, and put in the AQ condition, kept in a freezer at -10F, taken out of freezer and squeezed and left to assume room temperature, which takes it back up to T-4. What a pain in the azz...........

All parts were made in house, shrunk the angle and T-extrusion to curve, sent the T out for joggle, made the form block for the "former" at the nose, and hydro-formed with 2400 ton hydro press. And people wonder why airplanes cost so much.

Wow hunter....nice work!

Is the rib 2024 as well or maybe a 6000 series? 6013?

 

[NASTYZEN]

Aircraft parts always amaze me in there complexity. That's very nice work you do Hunter.

Time for riveting! Ive gathered all I'm gonna get, so here goes nothing.
No squeeze gun just my crappo air hammer.