Pop Rivet Tools

[Chip]

McCrea wrote in DougD's dollar boat thread, that pop riveting gunwales makes his hands hurt. Last year, when faced with the task of pop-riveting aluminum flashing into a boat hull for a kinetic sculpture I went looking for a power pop-rivet gun. I was very surprised to find there are few battery powered solutions, and they were expensive, like $500. For $70, I bought a pneumatic pop riveter at Harbor Freight. We could not figure out how to make that thing work, despite being a team of mechanic-savy guys. I guess we could eventually have figured it out, but our schedule was "gotta do this now." Ended up returning the thing and pop-riveting with the traditional, pliers-handled tool. It's not so much that it makes hands hurt, but it's painstakingly slow.

Is anybody successfully using power-assisted pop-rivet tools? If so, what are you using?

 

[Alan Gage]

I've never done enough to justify a powered gun. I prefer a longer two handed tool as opposed to the one handed squeeze type. Less effort.

Alan

 

[Chip]

The one-handed tool isn't. I end up using two hands, one to hold the fixed handle, holding it tight against the work, then the other hand to squeeze. Then you have to wiggle-shimmy the tool to get the mandrel to reseat in the tool, then squeeze again, usually a couple of times. It's just an annoying process. It's fine if you are just putting in a few pop rivets, but if you have a mass of them to do, that one-handed tool quickly grows tiresome. Alan's tool looks like a better deal, especially if you can install the rivet with one compression of the handles.

 

[Alan Gage]

Alan's tool looks like a better deal, especially if you can install the rivet with one compression of the handles.

That depends on how much longer the rivet is than the thickness of the material. A rivet that isn't much longer than the material is thick might pop in one stroke. A long rivet in thin material will take more strokes to take out the slack, for lack of a better term.

The rivet tool in my shop convertible and works pretty well. It can be used as either the common right angle style (for tight quarters) or the handle can be rotated to stick out the long way like the one pictured above. It's not as nice and easy as the dedicated two hand tools but it's better than being stuck in the one handed squeeze mode for everything. I found it at a local hardware store so shouldn't be too hard to come by. It's like this one: https://www.amazon.com/Arrow-Fasten...op+rivet+gun&qid=1552086070&s=gateway&sr=8-10

We have a nice two handed rivet gun (like pictured in my post above) at our repair shop so if I'm going to be doing more than a few rivets I just take it home with me.

Alan

 

[sweeper]

I have both the tools Alan showed. I like the double handled one a lot.

 

[Guest]

That depends on how much longer the rivet is than the thickness of the material. A rivet that isn't much longer than the material is thick might pop in one stroke. A long rivet in thin material will take more strokes to take out the slack, for lack of a better term.

The diameter of the mandrel and rivet pin matters with a pop rivet hand tool as well.

Installing a bunch of 1/8” snap rivets, like those on a spray cover, is a gentle squeeze cinch. Install 70 or so 3/16” pop rivets in a regunwaling is a hand aching chore.

That’s with aluminum rivets. I use large flange pop rivets for some things (foot braces, etc). I ignorantly bought a 25-pack of 3/16” flange rivets at the hardware store. I still have 24 of them.

“Ignorantly” because they are steel rivets. I cannot squeeze my pop rivet tool with enough force to compress them.

 

[Guest]

I used an air riveter a lot at work. Use the correct inserts for mandrel size, Push the rivet all the way into the riveter, pull the trigger,release the trigger, and wait for it to recycle before pulling the trigger again. I may take several cycles to pop the rivet. then be sure the mandrel stub ejects before doing another one.