Riveting advice needed

[alanmalk]

Originally Posted by Iowa Dave

In some cases you can use a a clamp or get help from an additional person, especially when using the bigger rivet guns. When I was working we used 1/4 inch diameter steel rivets and a rivet setter with 30 inch handles to set big rivets on road signs. The flush heads and the spread end of the rivet inside of a a square road sign post kept high school boys with dad’s socket set from stealing some signs. But not all.
Iowa Dave

Back in the late 60's there was a sign in our neighborhood that got stolen on a regular basis. It read "Rolling Stones".

[Iowa Dave]

They had their favorites in both regulatory and street signs, that’s for sure. When Jon Bonjovi was popular, you couldn’t keep a “slippery when wet” sign on the wall to save your life on the girls side of the swimming pool locker rooms. Back in the day two signs that were covered were Curves ahead and Soft Shoulders. Back when Buicks And Oldsmobiles ruled the back rows of the drive in theaters. I think Merle had a song about that.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sIKUkcNeZfQ

Iowa Dave

[John in Santa Cruz]

Casitas have a ton of rivets, I had to replace quite a few on ours... that one is definitely a 2 man job, someone has to be inside the casita, pressing on the cabinet or whatever it is you're riveting while you are on the outside pressing the rivet firmly down while using the gun. the rivets that are exposed on the inside have a shiny capnut over their ends, so the inside person has to be pressing that capnut firmly down (up or sideways). I took a hardwood dowel about 6" long, and 3/4" diameter and put a divot in the end, this made a good tool for pressing up/out on the capnuts.

[Brian B-P]

It doesn't really matter, but the mandrel is the central stem or pin of the rivet - the part which breaks, leaving just the head in the rivet. It's called a mandrel because the body of the rivet is formed around its head.

It could be handy to know this when selecting blind rivets, because aluminum-body rivets are available with either aluminum or steel mandrels.

The parts of the rivet installation tool which grab the mandrel are the jaws. The interchangeable parts which are selected to match the mandrel diameter are usually called nose pieces.

[Brian B-P]

The threaded items that can be installed with a tool like a rivet setter are called insert nuts, or rivet nuts; one brand name is Rivnut. They are not rivets, and don't fasten things together; they are installed in one part (such as the trailer shell) to allow something else to be attached to it with a bolt or screw. They do get squashed to set them, like a rivet; the installation tool has a threaded end instead of jaws.

[RBRV]

there are several different rivets out there, for a watertght rivet I would seek out what is called a cherry head rivet that incorporates a small rubber seal.

[John in Santa Cruz]

The Casitas external rivets (about 100, heh) are installed with a plastic cup washer that also serves to hold a cap on to cover the rivet. on older Casitas, its pretty common to put a little dab of sealant inside the cap before snapping it on to aid in waterproofing, but when stuff is new, the nylon cup washer does the trick

[Ron in BC]

Originally Posted by RBRV

there are several different rivets out there, for a watertght rivet I would seek out what is called a cherry head rivet that incorporates a small rubber seal.

Actually there's a, my term, blind, blind rivet. Instead of the protruding end being visible it's encapsulated in the body of the rivet and not visible. I used them to make a couple of large aluminum water tanks and they made for a water tight seam.

Ron

[RBRV]

Yep, the ones I used were blind rivets with seals and splits in the shank that collapse into a starlike pattern on the back. Useful in attaching accesories to kayaks