Free Sample
The Complete Handbook of Riveting Tools
Selection, Operation, and Maintenance for Professional and Serious DIY Use
by Alumigogo Books
Chapter 1: Understanding Riveting Tools
Consider the hinge on a commercial freezer door that has been opened and slammed shut fifty times a day for a decade. Consider the roof rack gutter on a work van that has carried ladders on gravel roads for a hundred thousand miles. Consider the skin on an aircraft fuselage that flexes with every pressurization cycle at altitude. What holds these assemblies together is not a weld, not a screw, but a small cylindrical fastener that has been deformed at one end to create a permanent, vibration-resistant head. That fastener is a rivet, and the tool that deforms it is a riveting tool.
Understanding riveting tools is not simply a matter of knowing which button to press or which lever to pull. It is a matter of understanding the physical forces that create a joint, the design constraints of the materials you join, and the specific job the tool must perform in your hands. The most expensive riveter in the world will make a weak joint if you use the wrong rivet, and the cheapest manual tool can produce thousands of perfect joints if you understand its limitations and its proper use. This chapter explains what these tools actually do, why the joint they create is structurally different from a threaded or welded joint, and why the choice of tool affects the quality and safety of everything you build.
The mechanics of a riveted joint
At its simplest, a rivet is a headed pin that