Rivets - removal and fitting (there must be better tools?)

[grim_d]

Shaver is for shaving down a slightly protruding solid countersunk rivet using it to take the head off pop rivet is almost genius but definitely overkill!

Sioux one pictured would be crazy money new (their hand drills are amazingly smooth, I have a couple) but used shavers can be picked up on USA ebay quite cheap.

 

[KemppiFrog]

Was handed a small aircraft that had blown over in a gale. The wings had over 600 pop rivits EACH. I bought an air riviter tha same day
Drilling them out was tricky, so as not to damage the skin, but I mostly used a same size drill, with the aforsaid rocking motion. Air drill was pref, as lighter and smaller than electric.

An aside. Dessouter make really good air tools for serious sheet work. The history was, old man Dessouter got involved in making tin legs after WW1 (IIRR, he lost one) The shortage of good tools back then, lead to him making his own, which became the main business.

 

[bigegg]

f you really want to spend A rivet shaver is THE tool

+ the cutter Best part of $600

Might as well get a gesipa powerbird cordless rivetter as well in that case...

 

[keithski122]

I do it a different way than everyone else then, small chisel and a hammer and chisel the head off, then punch the body out.Its a lot less mess than drilling.

 

[MrFluffy]

I have fou

I'm almost with Mr Fluffy.

I cut the heads off using a much larger drill. 6mm drill for a 3mm rivet, little blips on the drill trigger till the head comes off,
then punch through.
No oval holes and no need for the rivet size drill as the holes are there already.

To be clear I was highlighting that the oval rivet hole is there because someone has taken that panel and redrilled it a few times in the past already and got one of them off centre, not because the way I do it produces oval rivet holes.
If you drill immediately with the smaller drill, the divot from the centre of the larger drill locates it central and stops it wandering off.

I have a theory that the rivets spin in the hole when a section of tail besides the ball end is still left inside because someone used cheap rivets to redo it in the past and the drill hits the much harder inner tail section and snags. You can then without wrecking the panel if your careful get a small blade between the rivet and the panel and give it enough friction so it stays still while you finish the job.

 

[brightspark]

best drill to use is an air. drill very light and fast

 

[ibrooks]

Regarding the air riveters - I have one I bought from Machinemart and it's done lots of rivets no probs but I don't use it with the big compressor any more unless I'm doing lots and then I drop the pressure at the regulator....

Using the compressor at full pressure it'll pull the rivet and pop the nail on one trigger - but I find this gives a loose fit. Don't get me wrong it's not a "rattling" fit but especially if there's sealant or similar in the joint you find the panels could have been squeezed a little more tightly. It just seems as if the sudden pull allows some spring back somewhere in the process and it's the shock loading on the nail that breaks it.

I have a dinky little tankless compressor that's great for blowing up tyres and use that instead. First trigger on the riveter and it'll pull the panels together, second pull it squeezes further and the nail seems to get a more gradual stretch before breaking.

It's all just feel and guesstimate but makes sense to me.


Stainless rivets - not on Alloy panels I wouldn't have thought. OK you'll be painting over them but eventually water will get in there and stainless is just going to promote the alloy fizzing away to white powder with galvanic corrosion.

 

[steveo3002]

what do you do to prevent corrosion on fresh panels ? dust of primer or a bit of sealer on the rivet?

 

[500e]

http://www.eaa1000.av.org/technicl/corrosion/faysurf.htm

 

[waldershelf]

I use an old air riviter Phuuttt-tschhhhhhhhhh and i've afraid its just drilling the heads off. Once the head is cone the body should just fall out. once you have accesss to the rear of the panel don't forget to pick up all the old rivets, other wise they'll be rattling around forever once you get tha panel back on.

Not that you'd notice a few bits of old rivet bouncing around in a Land Rover

 

[Gwil]

Use Monel rivets dipped in zinc chromate paste (Duralac) before fitting. They hold up in the marine environment just fine for years. Not so the evil stainless/alloy combo. Bad news indeed.

 

[EddyP]

As Gwil has said, I wouldn't be using stainless rivets, you'll get corrosion of the ally around the rivet.
Look into how they prevent corrosion in aviation, almost every plane in the sky is pop riveted together as has been since the 40s.

 

[grim_d]

Look into how they prevent corrosion in aviation, almost every plane in the sky is pop riveted together as has been since the 40s.

I'm not sheet metal and don't claim to be but I do like having a go! It obviously depends on the plane but solid rivets are far more abundant, at least in commercial jets, but there is a fair amount of blind rivets too. What I see for corrosion prevention can include Alclad Material, coating processes such as chromating solutions and chromating primers before rivets (or other fasteners) are inserted, sealant between panels and sealant on some fasteners during insertion. Any solid rivets I have used have been aluminium some of which will be coated as some are a copper colour. There are steel rivets but I have no idea where they are used as I've never come across them and probably never will!

Generally finished with various paints and or Corrosion inhibiting sprays such as Dinitrol.

Very much belt and braces but seems to work!

 

[hotrodder]

Unless i've missed something stainless rivets were never the plan? Stainless mandrels were mentioned as an alternative, presumably to plated steel mandrel with ally rivet body?

Dunno what Land Rover used origionally but i'd have thought aluminium head and mandrel were likely? For closed end/sealed blind rivets they're commonly only available with 1050/1100 aluminium body so pretty soft/weak. AlMg2.5 (aka 5052) body and mandrel are fairly common (a bunch stronger and effectively the same flavour as the bodywork) but AFAIK they're only commonly available as 'regular' blind rivets?

 

[julianf]

Unless i've missed something stainless rivets were never the plan? Stainless mandrels were mentioned as an alternative, presumably to plated steel mandrel with ally rivet body?

Dunno what Land Rover used origionally but i'd have thought aluminium head and mandrel were likely? For closed end/sealed blind rivets they're commonly only available with 1050/1100 aluminium body so pretty soft/weak. AlMg2.5 (aka 5052) body and mandrel are fairly common (a bunch stronger and effectively the same flavour as the bodywork) but AFAIK they're only commonly available as 'regular' blind rivets?

My talk of stainless was just with regard to the mandrel, so as there were not rust lines running down the body from unpainted rivets.

An aluminium head and mandrel would do me just fine.

 

[julianf]

As said, drill them out and use an air rivet gun. I bought a cheap Neilsen one on ebay to fix the roof on a horse box, something with a few hundred rivets. It did that job plus many rivets since and was a good investment.

This seems about as cheap as they come -

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-PROFE...809125?hash=item58db9fdce5:g:dt4AAOxyiBpSHxGR

Sold under different brand names, it seems.


Ill order one next week, unless anyone screams "NO!!!" ?

 

[KemppiFrog]

Sorry, I was talking about a small kit built aircraft. When I was looking after normal general aviation stuff, like our air taxis,it was all solid rivets. Very few pops used on 'proper' aircraft.
KF

 

[KemppiFrog]

http://www.eaa1000.av.org/technicl/corrosion/faysurf.htm

Good stuff.
I nearly bought a kit from the US that was mostly glued together. A tin single with a little 2T engine. Sort of powered glider with some aerobatic ability. Designer was one John Monet.

Drifting a bit... There was an article in the EEA rag about a guy in the mid west of the US that 'happened' to have a Packard Merlin in his barn and had always like the idea of a Fokker Triplane. So he built one....at 3X scale... from what he had lying around. So one says what a fantasist. Except, he put up a photo of him leaning against the lower wing of this ginormous (long pre-photoshop) triplane. He was test running the engine and it jumped the log he used to chock the wheels, next thing he knew he was airborne. Did a circuit and landed, then decided to write it up and send in to;the EEA. But kept his location secret.

We need more blokes like that

 

[DAPPH]

If i want to spend some money on removing rivets, will it make any difference?

Ive got a bunch to remove on the landrover, and theyre on the outside of body panels, so is there anything more precision than just attacking them with a drill?


And can anyone recommend an air powered (etc) tool for putting them back in? Ive done a fair amount of them in the past with a hand tool, and its not much fun.

Im sure ive just purchased the rivets from screwfix etc. in the past, but i understand i can buy them with a stainless core. Any disadvantages in this, beyond, im guessing, cost?

Use an automatic dot punch on the rivet if there is no centre and use the shouldered drills that have a smaller drill tip ground up on them .

 

[Mr shiney]

This seems about as cheap as they come -

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-PROFE...809125?hash=item58db9fdce5:g:dt4AAOxyiBpSHxGR

Sold under different brand names, it seems.


Ill order one next week, unless anyone screams "NO!!!" ?

Thats the type I have, its been uber reliable and pulls some pretty big rivets!!