Rivets also called rivet nails, are a type of nail with a short stem and a cylindrical shape.
These nails have a half-round head and are often used to build bus charts, steel frame buildings, airplane structures, and truss bridge frames.
The head of other types of rivets can have different shapes, like a trapezoid, a flat surface, or a rectangle.
These nails are made of hard steel, copper, brass, aluminum, or mild steel. They are also often used to make shoe canvases.
History of Rivets
When you look at the history of rivets, you’ll see that this type of nail was used more to build bridges and other big projects.
But these days, rivets are used more often for small and large construction projects, especially permanent ones.
Nails are now made of nickel, steel, bronze, aluminum, and copper. They have a head and a rod.
Because of their different sizes and shapes, they also serve other purposes, such as:
- Flat-headed rivets are generally for docking and leveling the surface of building construction.
- Trapezoidal-headed rivets build buildings with large oil requirements or shipbuilding frames.
- Round-headed rivets are generally for building bridge and boiler frames but are often used to close other building constructions.
How to use rivets is divided into several according to the type of nail itself.
1. Manual Use of Common Rivets
- Before you learn to use rivets, you should know that their connection is permanent.
- This means that once rivets are used to install or connect something, the connection can’t be taken apart again.
- Even if you want to break the connection, you can’t do it cleanly. You have to break it.
- When using or installing something by hand, several steps need to be taken into account:
- Use a drilling machine to make a hole in the plate or other material that will be joined with rivets. Make sure the spot is the right size.
- Put the rivet rod into the hole in the plate or other material that is done.
- Check and measure the rod length coming out of the hole when you put the rivet in. It should be 1.5 times the diameter of the rivet.
- Get a hammer and hit the end of the rivet rod in the hole until the nail head forms.
- Also, give the head a shaper (die) for the rivet head and put it on the head.
- Hit the rivet head shaper with a hammer until it looks nice and straight.
- To use rivets with a tapered head, make a hole on the surface of the plate or material to be joined that also has a tapered shape. This is done so that the shape of the nail head matches the shape of the rivet successfully nailed.
- If you want to use big rivets, heat them first, making them easier to form.
- When the plate or material is hot, these bigger rivets can be put into the holes and hit with a hammer, like in the previous steps.
No matter what kind or size of the rivet is used, a hole with the right shape must be drilled or cut first.
For a cleaner look, it’s best to make a hole in the part of the plate you want to connect with a shape that looks like the head of a rivet.
2. Use of Explosive Rivets
To use explosive rivets, you don’t need a hammer to join things together.
Here are some things to consider if you want to install explosive rivets.
- First, heat the rivet and make sure there is a hole in the plate or other material that will be joined or machined.
- Put the explosive rivet into the hole made earlier while it is still hot.
- After you have put it in the right way, heat the head of the rivet with fire.
- When you heat the head of an explosive rivet with fire, it will blow.
- Because of the explosion, the tip of the stem or shaft of the rivet then grows.
- A joint can be made without a nail when the rivet expands after it pops out.
3. Use of Pop Rivet Nails
Pop rivets are also known as dead-end rivets or blind rivets.
The installation is also different from ordinary and explosive types of rivets.
The name pop rivet itself is because this type of rivet is installed in the joint.
- Make a hole in the plate or material and prepare the pop/blind rivet first; continue by inserting the stem/stem into the hole of the plate or material to be connected.
- Use a rivet driver by attaching it to the end of the center rod of the rivet, then use a rivet gun to press down firmly once it is properly attached.
- The function of the rivet gun here is to create a new rivet head which, if successful, the user can disconnect the rivet and the center rivet rod by pulling back the rivet gun.
Before understanding how to use rivets, it would be better to recognize all types, shapes, and sizes of rivets so that the work can adjust to the type and size of the rivet.