Riveting tricks?
 

Does anyone have any tricks for making nice looking rivets on floor pans, etc.? I think my air hammer is hitting too hard.


Thx

Re: Riveting tricks?
 

Air hammer...OR....rivet gun...?

Does it have a true throttle / variable feed rate?

Re: Riveting tricks?
 

Floorpan rivets are "waffle" set. I assume you have a waffle bit for your gun. I have set a fair number of 3/16" floorpan, seat frame, etc rivets. I used an air hammer initially and the results were OK, but not great. I bought a 3X rivet gun on eBay and it works better since it has a much longer stroke. The real key is to "set" the rivet in one operation. I set them cold. If you go back a second time on the rivet, the results are not very good, as it messes up the waffle pattern. I use 80# of air pressure for my rivet gun, which seems to work well. I tried less and that didn't work as well. Having a good "buck" is important to get a good rivet set. I made a setup to use a 1" solid rod, a 1" pipe to put the rod in and a press plate on the floor to serve as a very solid "buck". If you want to see some pictures of my setup, send me an email to: [email protected].
Rusty Nelson

Re: Riveting tricks?
 

Yup, you should use a rivet gun not an air hammer.

Re: Riveting tricks?
 

I agree with the responders above. A rivet gun has a longer slower hit and is much easier to control. Rivets of 1/4 inch or smaller can be set cold. It takes only a few strokes with a rivet gun.

Re: Riveting tricks?
 

midgetracer,
I did a fair amount of riveting on my pickup box. Almost all the rivets were 1/4". I found that trying to set the 1/4" rivets required a lot of heat. I first tried to set them cold like I do 3/16" rivets, and not much happened. The rivets in the box were all peened over round, not waffle. I used a 3X rivet gun. Just my experience.
Rusty Neslon