Okay so I looked for a rivet inserter to use to fix the rusty area in the trunk. I think at $20 for the riverter, $4 for the rivets and $20 for the sheet of 16 ga. metal well for an area that small you just can't beat that price to fix this probelm. My only questions is on the rivet itself is a long shaft and then a small part what happens to the long shaft when you join two pieces of metal does it get cut off or is it still there? all i want to remain i sthe stubby part

 

cuts off and then you have the finished rivet

 

The shaft (looks like a nail) is the part that the rivet tool pulls on. There's a ball on the end of it inside the rivet - the ball is what expands the far end of the rivet. Once the rivet is set, the shaft breaks off. Ref: attached pic:

You can see the ball just outside the end of the rivet. What you can't see (I couldn't find a cutaway pic quickly enough) is that there is a "necked down" section of the shaft right before the ball - that's why the shaft will break off, and where the rivet gets called a "Pop rivet" from (there's a definite "pop!" when the shaft snaps off.)

You drill the hole in the panels (both of them!) insert the rivet, and you can leave it in place while you're lining up the rest of the holes (or, at least, getting a hole or two in each side. Don't "pop" them yet - just set them in place.)

Once you have the repair panel to where it would be positively located, you lift it out and seal it in place (something like 3M's Seam Sealer will work neatly - get it at a very well-stocked local.) Then, set the rivets back in and "pop" them. Work back and forth across the panel.

Once the panel is fixed in place, you can set additional rivets if you like.

The advantage to pop rivets is that you don't need to access the other side of the panel. With conventional rivets, you'll need to be able to set an anvil on one side (the "factory head" side) and then use a pneumatic hammer with a "bucking bar" to form the "shop head" (or "field head") - but this is how the solid rivets are used - like on aircraft or race car bodies.

The second attached pic shows a solid rivet after being inserted through two panels and then upset. The round head is the "factory head" (the one that is already on it when you get it,) and the flatter head underneath is the "shop head" (the one that is upset with the bucking bar. The anvil is put on the shop head and is used to both back up the rivet for upsetting and to preserve the shape of the factory head.)

Yes, there are myriad sizes of factory head, and the number of anvils and bucking bars you can get are legion. But, the Pop rivet tool will cover you for most Pop rivets you can get.

NB: A rivet is excellent for loading in shear - like for body work and suchlike - but should not be used to mount anything with a good deal of tension on it. Use a bolt and nut instead. However, one odd place I've had excellent luck using rivets is in mounting speakers for the better sound systems I've built - I'd sandwich the speaker mounting tabs using rubber bonded washers and fix them in place with rivets. Rivets don't back out and loosen, as has been known to happen with screws...

 

so what im gathering here is that the nail looking part breaks off? and how do you tell the difference between a normal rivet and a pop rivet tool, is a pop rivet an air powered tool? and whats a pneuamatic hammer?

 

I just have a squeeze handle one and the nail thing just pops off. Great for quick repairs as long as you seal the edges with some type of waterproof sealant.

 

so thats the pop rivet version? whats this about having to access the panel from both sides?

 

My hobby is building airplanes (full size), that's called bucking and that's where you need a bucking bar on the backside to vibrate against. This is a total structural rivet and doesn;t really fit your application.

You do have a few options though, rivets come in many styles and in different materials like stainless, alum, and steel or a combination of two.

Rivets can be countersunk, flat, domed, or dimpled. Go on youtube and search out aircraft riveting.

Or, go to aircraftspruce.com and do a search for rivets to see some good pictures.

For your application a simple hardware store pop rivet might be just the ticket. I have $4,000 dollars worth of rivet tools but that's for structural bonding of an aircraft. A basic cheap rivet tool works great!

Mike

 

Here is a link to a great website to a popular pop riveted homebuilt aircraft company. Many people build airplanes from scratch using only a set of blueprints. After 15,000 rivets you get pretty good at them.
http://www.zenithair.com/kit-data/use-tls.htm

Mike

 

so with a normal rivet do i have to have access to both sides of the panel, the way im riveting is a small patch of which only a small section runs over the gas tank, or at least i think it does? anyway it looks to me like a riveter from home depot would do the trick and if i use one of those then the nail looking part will get torn off right?

 

Yes, a HD rivet tool is fine. And yes, the shaft is only there as a means of a surface to grab the rivet and pull it tight like a clamp, at which point it snaps off because the clamp (rivet) is stronger than the shaft. That's why some rivets have stainless steel bodies with aluminum alloy shafts, the shaft does nothing in a non-structural rivet (that's what your using)

When I say non-structural that doesn't mean it's not strong because it it, but in you application you not worried about shear strength like you would on other applications.

In the old days like the Model-T ford, the frames were riveted and were 100% structural because they didn't do welding so strength was everything. For sheet metal you just need a clamp, and that's what a HD rivet is....a simple clamp.

Just remember that the rivet body comes in different thicknesses because sometimes people clams thicker material. In you case you need to figure out the total depth and find a rivet that's designed to clamo that depth. This information is available on the box and it usually has a thickness range the rivet can handle.

Mike

 

the nail part that breaks off is called the mandrel and the clamping part is called the body... and POP is just a brand name! check out emahart.com or masterfix.com