Interior Pop Rivet alternative substitute?

[perryg114]

I put my skins back on with #8 stainless steel sheet metal screws and all is fine. The good thing is I can get back in there without having to drill out a million pop rivets. I hate drilling those things out.

Perry

[dkottum]

Just don't tell Airstream about this fantastic discovery. They'll quit using rivets on our Airstreams and we'll all be screwed.

[TheCabin]

dkottum, that was a good one!

[ghaynes755]

Ray, I was on the second tier. Butch was down on the main floor. Lot of fun throwing stuff at him from the catwalk. We all called him Bobbie since it got his goat to goin. Never met Harry. I went straight after I got out. Real tired of making brooms. Those were the days.

[Ray Eklund]

Last week... popped rivet #7. In bathroom. Found the loose rivet, about 3/8" of it on the floor.

Will put the 'lath screw to it' as I look for other popped rivets.

The installed 'lath screws' are holding. No new issues to report as to their use as a rivet substitute. Lath screws look nicer and can be purchased by the carton for easy application.

I did need to temporarily use a lath screw at the bottom of the oven, that requires two 'wood' screws. The road vibration caused both 'original screws' to fall out. The original was too loose, and the lath screw too small in diameter. Will upsize the wood screw to test fit.

The formica covered sawdust cabinets lack any long term use of a wood screw holding an oven onto the frame that it is inserted.

I would comment on Interstate wood screws for the interior, but it may be wise not to. I suspect that Airstream are reducing the size of wood screws according to the amount of real wood in the cabinets.

I noticed the frame for the microwave oven thin metal support frame splitting in the lower right corner. Maybe time to remove it to store paper plates, paper towels and toilet paper.

[J. Morgan]

I think that changing one of these trailers from anything but "as delivered" stock is an Airstream travesty, and an insult to each and every engineer worldwide.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if changing out these rivets to screws will invite destructive harmonic vibrations that will annihilate your trailer into nothing but a pile of smoldering rubble.

Ray, if you insist on doing destructive things to your trailer you should keep it to yourself so that others might not get the idea that they can just eliminate pop rivets at will and destroy their trailers entirely.

Your abandonment of accepted and standard process is a display of overt and dangerous non conformance that is entirely unacceptable and DANGEROUS. I humbly submit that you CEASE AND DESIST.


Superat stultitia.

[Ray Eklund]

My lath screws are magnetic. Aluminum is not so I am dealing with some magnetic material or alloyed with a magnetic metal.

They appear to be like the metal used as centers used on the 15" wheels. Also not magnetic.

The container does not mention what these are made. The instructions are a fair translation of some other language.

No. I have not had any electro chemical reactions with the aluminum and lath screw. I may need to attach Zinc to the frame to provide electrons to Element #13 which may be giving them up too freely.

Yes. I am examining the lath screw use as an alternative of a pop rivet very closely.

No. I have no professional lath screw resume of use nor option uses.

Yes. I did read the instructions with the package. It did not mention Airstream or alternative uses as rivets.

- It was the result of these harmonic vibrations that produced two daughters before the thought of lath screws entered my inventory of quick repairs to my new Airstream. This is given as a warning to those who want to fool Mother Nature substituting pop rivets with lath screws.

Anyone who wants to substitute a toothpick for a pop rivet to secure their interior, good. It has multiple uses and is just as effective.

[J. Morgan]

Tell me Ray, how do you know that these so called "lath screws" are not made of cobalt?

How do you know that you are not only destroying your trailer but not poisoning countless generations of campers to come while at the same time destroying the very earth itself via radiation poisoning?

I am losing patience with people like you who TINKER about without caring about the consequences. Oh sure, you claim you know what you are doing, but I am not seeing any PROOF at all.

I want proof that you are not destroying campgrounds and the earth, and I will not settle for anything less.

(toothpicks? Freaking seriously? Do you have any idea of how many trees are lost to toothpicks? )


Superat stultitia.