Skin replacement

[Aerowood]

Finding the rivets is one thing, but try to find a brazier head rivet set, and a 5/32 470 rivet set will leave smiley's on the skin.

[Lobo2]

I've seen guys grind off the sharp edge of a rivet set head to help prevent getting "smiley faces". Doesn't take much since the purpose is only to round the sharp edge some. Also makes it easier to keep the set from getting into the skin if you happen not to be holding the set exactly straight when you pull the trigger.
Good luck!

[soldiermedic]

I have been drilling out a great deal of my exterior 1/8 brazier head rivets in the process of my restoration. I am replacing them all with 5/32 solid rivets MS20470AD5-(4,5,6) depending on what I am riveting together. I went with AD because of the strength offered, and because rivet Guru Aerowood told me that was what I needed. I have used a few olympic rivets along with a bunch of sikaflex on a patch, but it only connects skin to skin.

Steve

[Zeppelinium]

Originally Posted by Aerowood

Finding the rivets is one thing, but try to find a brazier head rivet set, and a 5/32 470 rivet set will leave smiley's on the skin.

Absolutely. I did my first brazier head rivets yesterday and got about 6 smilies before I figured out you have to be much more careful with a brazier head rivet set than a universal set. Photos to follow...

But if you're replacing a short section of skin along the door frame, you can't use universal head rivets--the head diameters are so significantly different that the visual is terrible.

Zep

[Aerowood]

You can shave the 470's with the Olympic shaver to make them look like a brazier head.

[Zeppelinium]

Brazier riverts are hard to find in smaller sizes and lengths--they seem to be popular for assembling semi-trailers, so they're big and long. Not what we need. But they can be found if you search. Same goes for the rivet sets.

I wanted 1/8" Brazier and 5/32" Modified Brazier so that the heads would be the same size, even if I had to go oversize with a particular rivet. My big disappointment is that the Modified Brazier heads don't fit the Brazier rivet sets very well.

Here's an example of the difference between the appearances of the Brazier and Universal heads. As you can see in the right photo, the Brazier rivet heads still look the same. I decided I could use universal heads on a patch that was self-contained around its perimeter, but for the patch that went under the door frame, the rivets had to look like the rest of the heads in the door.



I can also confirm that you need to take extra care not to make smilies when using a Brazier rivet set.



Zep