Rivet Tools

[markdoane]

Originally Posted by uwe

It's like this: If you have time and big arms, use the hand riveter. I take mine out whenever it's a small job, like 10 or so rivets.

I agree totally. These arthiritc wrists have had enough squeezing. I also agree that the pneumatic does a more consistant job, and doesn't leave the ocassional tail sticking out.
I bought a pneumatic shear for making long cuts in aluminum. Aviation snips really wear me out. Tools nowdays are so cheap, at Harbor Freight or Northern Hydraulic, that you can use them and throw them away if they wear out. Which will be long after I'm through with them.

[74Argosy24MH]

Originally Posted by markdoane

I bought a pneumatic shear for making long cuts in aluminum.

Where did you get it? I have a hand shear which is slowly wearing out, one that would do 1/4" steel would be nice but I don't think the neighbors would like the noise. Pneumaitc sounds like it would be heavier than what I have.

John

[markdoane]

It won't do anything like 1/4". More like 18 ga. steel or .060" aluminum. Cost about $55. at Northern Tool. Item No. 157795. For cutting 1/4", a torch might be good.

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/w...&search=157795

[JohnG]

Originally Posted by malconium

Greg176,

I looked at the Air Parts catalog at the following page:

http://www.airpartsinc.com/catalog2004_pdf.htm

I called them and asked about the rivit shaver there. They told me it was intended for what I needed and that it does fit the microcounterstop on the same page. I decided to give it a try. With the shipping charge the total came to $20.70 which is a pretty good deal if it does the job as advertized. It is coming by UPS ground so it may take a few days. Once it arrives I will give it a try and post my findings here.

Thanks for the pointer,

Malcolm

Malcolm,
Just wondering if you have had a chance to test this tool out yet?

[malconium]

JohnG,

I received the tool the other day. I should be able to give it a try Friday or Saturday. It looks like it should be able to do the job providing I can get the depth setting to work right. It is obvious that it is a little better suited to shaving the head of a flush rivit since the travel looks like it might be pretty clost to maxed out if I set it to stop above the surfave where the head of a crowned rivit ends.

I will let everyone know in a day or two.

Malcolm

[JohnG]

Malcolm,

I hope it works. It would be a great alternative for those who don't need a high dollar rivet shaver.

[Ken J]

How do I know how many CFM my air compressor puts out? Its a 1hp double lung - tank is about three feet long and about a foot around.

Ken

[markdoane]

Just a WAG based on Hp- probably about 4 SCFM at 90 psig. It has a fairly large tank, about 15 gal, so that's good.
Isn't there a label? Mfg?

[Ken J]

Its a speedaire by Dayton - measured the tank and its 15 x 30 and no there are no markings on it. It is an oil based compressor if that helps. I looked at some today in Walmart and noticed that they did not list CFM at least on the box. There was one there that looked about my size and on the box it said I could use an airhammer - which I assume takes that same amount of juice as the riveter - on an intermittent basis.

So can I assume I can use my compressor for the air rivet gun?

Thanks

Ken

[markdoane]

Of course. You might have to pace yourself.
I tested my new rivet gun and an air hammer against a piece of plywood. Really glad I bought the rivet gun. No control with the air hammer, basically just ON or OFF. The rivet gun had a nice throttle control which I think will work very well.
The biggest problem I had with my 2hp air compressor was during sandblasting. Could only use it for about 5 minutes, then had to wait for the compressor to catch up. I also need to be careful using the DA sander.

[JohnG]

Don,

You can use an inline regulator or just cut down the air pressure at the tank and this will help to control the air hammer.
I never seen one that only has a on/off type control, what kind of air hammer is it? Mine has a soft trigger on it and it works harder the harder you press the trigger.

[malconium]

Well I finally got around to trying the inexpensive shaver on a few rivits today and in general it does work. I have no experience with any other type of shaver so I can not compare features but I can relate what I found out about the one that got from airpartsinc.com (any one reading this thread for the first time can find the item mentioed in post #25 of this thread). So here is what I found and some thoughts about it:

1.) The travel adjustment was very close to the maximum limit when I got it set correctly for the depth of an olympic rivit. It did, however adjust OK and relatively easily.

2.) The base of the tool is only about 3/4" in diameter so I did have to exercise some care to keep it reasonably perpendicular with the body but that did not seem hard to do. Outriggers do not seem to be necessary but I am sure it would not be hard to rig something up is a person wanted that.

3.) The base is steel so I think that I will consider adding something to the steel to help ensure that I do not scratch the body arond the rivitwith the tool base. I am not sure what to add yet but one thing that occurs to me is that I could perhaps dip the base of the tool in the type of plastic that you can buy to coat tool handles with. That might not be even enough on the base though. I could also do something really simple like add a little electrical tape. A side benefit of adding something could be to give me a bit more range on the depth adjustment.

4.) I first tried running the tool with my electric drill. I think someone mentioned in this thread that it might be desirable to run this type of tool with something higher speed and that is what I found out. The tool chatters and jumps a bit too much with the lower speed drill. I have an air powered die grinder tool that came with an assortment of air tools I bought a while back for under $100 (a really good investment so far by the way). This tool has a 1/4" chuck which was perfect for the shaver. It also is rated to run at 20,000 rpm which also worked great. My guess is that it would also work fine with other high speed tools like a RotoZip or anything that will take the 1/4" bit. Maybe a plunge cut router would work too.

5.) I did not try it on very many rivits today since I had other priorties but I did find that the outside of the tool got a bit hot to hold after doing maybe 4 rivits or so. I think I would either want to wear a glove to hold it or maybe add an insulating sleave. Hopefully the heat does not imply that the 20k rpm is too fast.

6.) On my rivits I had already used a bolt cutter to nip off much of the rivit shaft so that there was less than an 1/8" of it left to shave off. The limited amount of travel of the tool would require that this be done. That actually went pretty quickly when I did it the other day. I could also envision nipping them off closer if I were to use a cutter that could cut closer.

7.) The holder for the bit is oriented so that I could see inside easily enough. That is probably a good feature too since I noticed that not all of my rivits are exactly the same height for various reasons. I could vary the travel a little to get the results I wanted by just watching how the shaving was going.

8.) I found that a little side to side motion of the tool seemed to help with the shaving but, of course, would increase the chances of scratching the aluminum with the tool base.

In general I am happy enough with the tool considering the price ($20.70 total with shipping) and the relatively small number of rivits I have to deal with. It seems like it is going to do what I need.

Malcolm

[malconium]

Today I discovered another reason why an airpowered pop-rivit tool might be one of the next tools on my list. I have to replace some of the bananna wrap on my AS which of course means removing and replacing the rug-rail too. What I found with my hand powered tool was that it was a bit dificult to operate the thing with just one hand while I was holding onto the target object with the other hand. Someone please tell me that an air powered tool is easy to operate with one hand and I think it will be on my list. For the same reason that I would never want to have to install moulding and trim without my air-powered brad nailer.

Malcolm

[wahoonc]

Originally Posted by Ken J

Its a speedaire by Dayton - measured the tank and its 15 x 30 and no there are no markings on it. It is an oil based compressor if that helps. I looked at some today in Walmart and noticed that they did not list CFM at least on the box. There was one there that looked about my size and on the box it said I could use an airhammer - which I assume takes that same amount of juice as the riveter - on an intermittent basis.

So can I assume I can use my compressor for the air rivet gun?

Thanks

Ken

Ken, the air riveter doesn't use that much air because it is a short cycle not continous like a sander, shear or air chisel. I have an ancient Dayton 3/4hp 3 gal tank, the tag is on the tank, but mine is rated at 9 cfm@40psi and 2.3 cfm@90psi. It was purchased many years ago to run a pair of Bosch roofing nailers. It did a good job as long as you let up every now and again to let the tank pressure catch up. I would think that yours would be just fine for the riveter and most other air tools outside of something like a sandblaster or high speed finishing sander.

FWIW I mainly use electric or battery operated tools because that is what is available to us for field work. But I am looking at adding to my air tool collection very quickly, the prices are 1/2-1/3 of the equivalent electric/battery tools. This is the Battery Rivet Gun that I use they run around $650-700usd Gotta have my toys for work...not. When you are installing 10,000 3/16" rivets 135' in the air you buy the tools you need and the ones that work.

Aaron

[markdoane]

Originally Posted by JohnG

Don,
I never seen one that only has a on/off type control, what kind of air hammer is it? Mine has a soft trigger on it and it works harder the harder you press the trigger.

John,

It's a Chicago Pneumatic zip gun, model CP-711, model A. It's very useful for splitting mufflers.

OK, you caught me in a slight exaggeration. It's not really on/off, just seems like it compared to the new rivet gun. If I turn the pressure down low enough to match the lowest BPM of the rivet gun, the piston tends to jam.

The rivet gun has a lighter piston and runs slower at max throttle. I guess this is a case where I had to suck it up and spend the money.

[markdoane]

Originally Posted by malconium

What I found with my hand powered tool was that it was a bit dificult to operate the thing with just one hand while I was holding onto the target object with the other hand. Someone please tell me that an air powered tool is easy to operate with one hand and I think it will be on my list. For the same reason that I would never want to have to install moulding and trim without my air-powered brad nailer.

Malcolm

Yes. It's not weightless though. I like that it has a long nose, so it's easier to reach inside tight spaces, though that doesn't apply with banaba wrap.

Thanks for the tip about the brad nailer. I'm usually too lazy to drag an air hose through the house. I can tell from looking at the crooked ceiling moulding that I should have.

[Ken J]

[QUOTE=wahoonc]Ken, the air riveter doesn't use that much air because it is a short cycle not continous like a sander, shear or air chisel.

Thats what I had figured, but wanted to make sure - each rivet takes about 2-3 seconds to set from what I understand, so its not in constant use and I figured at that rate, the compressor would have lots of time to catch up. My compresser does recover pretty quickly when it does come on.

Tools are good

Ken

[uwe]

[QUOTE=Ken J]

Originally Posted by wahoonc

Ken, the air riveter doesn't use that much air because it is a short cycle not continous like a sander, shear or air chisel.

Thats what I had figured, but wanted to make sure - each rivet takes about 2-3 seconds to set from what I understand, so its not in constant use and I figured at that rate, the compressor would have lots of time to catch up. My compresser does recover pretty quickly when it does come on.

Tools are good

Ken

Ken,
I have a small air hammer which has a regulator built into it. I used it on full power to convince some rusted bolts on my frame to come out, and it did not require much cfm. My compressor is a 5hp tank type, and it does not work hardly at all with the air hammer. Die grinders and sanders require huge cfm, but the air hammer, air shear,and air ratchets usually work very well with smaller compressors.
I am going to try some riveting tomorrow, just got rivets and shank and bucking bar yesterday at aircraft spruce. If my air hammer does not workj well enough, then I will get a better one from aircraft spruce.
Indeed, tools are good!

[JohnG]

Originally Posted by markdoane

John,

It's a Chicago Pneumatic zip gun, model CP-711, model A. It's very useful for splitting mufflers.

OK, you caught me in a slight exaggeration. It's not really on/off, just seems like it compared to the new rivet gun. If I turn the pressure down low enough to match the lowest BPM of the rivet gun, the piston tends to jam.

The rivet gun has a lighter piston and runs slower at max throttle. I guess this is a case where I had to suck it up and spend the money.

Yes a rivet gun does cost a whole lot more than an air hammer. I have used both and really don't see that it is so far apart. The real key in bucking rivets is to use short trigger bursts and to keep pressure against the rivet head.
In turning down the air hammer's pressure I only turn down to around 75 psi and it still works fine.
If I were to have to replace my rivet gun today I really think I would just buy an air hammer instead.

[uwe]

Don't forget air tool maintenance. Oil them before and after use, to keep things from jamming and rusting. Compressed air contains a lot of moisture, which can ruin an air tool in no time.
Water seperators, and filters are a good investment if you use the air tool very frequently. Especially if you run expensive tools.