[TheForge] stainless steel rivets

[RIES NIEMI]

I have been plowing thru the stainless rivets since september- we are on our
4th thousand rivet box. I am using 1/4" diameter round head stainless
rivets, and the vast majority we are setting with a 30 ton hydraulic press,
which works quite nicely, but...
Some of the locations wont fit in the press, and must be set by hand. I made
a hand set, consisting of a backing bar, which is a piece of 2" round, about
2" long, welded to a 8"x4"x 1/4" piece of flat bar. It sticks straight up in
the middle, with a round head depression to match a rivet head drilled in
the top of it. I used a ball endmill, and chucked it up in the lathe, but
you could buy a ball mill the right size for about 20 bucks, and use a drill
press. This backing bar goes under the piece to be riveted, setting on a
sturdy steel table, and keeps the factory round head from getting deformed.

For the actual rivet set, I used another piece of 2" round, maybe 6" long,
drilled another hemispherical hole in the end. To set the rivets, we put
them in place, thru the metal to be riveted, then heat the end using the
smallest tip on our oxy-acetylene torch. get the stainless red, and hit it a
couple of times with a two pound hammer. It takes a good whack, but it is
not significantly harder than a mild steel rivet when it is hot. Best done
with two people, one to heat and one to swing. the stainless cools pretty
fast, and only forms a really nice head when it is good and hot.

Of course, if you just wanted flat head rivets, it would be a lot easier-
just a flat piece of steel for a backing bar, and just hit it with a hammer,
after getting it hot.

Ries 


on 4/8/03 9:27 AM, Catherine Jo Morgan at cjmorgan@hemc.net wrote:

> I've only used the annealed mild steel rivets - very easy to head up
> with a ball pein hammer or a rivet set. Has anyone here used the
> stainless rivets? I think of stainless as being about three times
> tougher to hammer than mild steel, so I'm wondering how difficult it
> will be to head them up.
> 
> Catherine Jo Morgan
> Morgan Sculpture
> Iron and mixed media vessels
> cjmorgan@hemc.net
> 706-754-3812
>