I just built some bomber seats for the roadster I am building and I want to rivit them together, but I don't know anything about riviting. Can someone help me out a little? Am I going to have to buy a rivit gun or can I do them with a hammer? What kind of rivits do I want? Where can I get them? Is there a book I can buy? Would copper rivits look alright or should I use aluminum? The seats are made from .063 aluminum. What size and spacing do I use?
You will need to buy a riveter to keep from screwing up your panels that need to be riveted. I would try to use the same material for the rivets. Do a search for riveting. There is a TON of stuff on here... Check Aircraft Spruce for the tools...
Another option for supplies is a semi trailer repair shop. I picked up a good selection from a shop in our area. They use them to repair the sheeting on semi vans. They can probably also help in explaining how it is done. I got the anvil things that I used in an air hammer also from them. You hold a hammer or dolly on the back side and hit the front side with the air hammer. It takes some practice to not distort the head of the rivet too much. A regulator to turn down the pressure on the air hammer helps. Neal
Try the yardstore.com for tools.The EAA has info on riveting try thier website or buy a copy of A.C. 43-13-1A from the FAA.Go to your local airport and see if any of the A&Ps are into hot rods.Or come on down and I'll show you how to do it.
Here are a couple of links that go into more than you'd ever want to know about riveting. http://www.rvproject.com/rivets.html http://www.vansairforce.net/articles/NotesOnRiveting/NotesOnRiveting.htm I bought most of my riveting supplies from here: http://www.averytools.com/ Ebay is also a very good source for used bucking bars and rivet guns.
Thanks for the information on riviting. These sites http://www.rvproject.com/rivets.html http://www.vansairforce.net/articles...OnRiveting.htm are very good. There is an airport nearby and I will check that out.
I wiil try to put together a tech article on building the seats. I am not very good on the computer so it may take me a while.
Steve, I had some info on a company that made small plain round head bolts that used nuts. They look like rivets, probably no help for your application. Sounds like a cool project, let's see some pics!!
I bought a manual "sqeezer" (not a pop riveter) from Aircraft Spruce that I have used for years. They have fairly shallow jaws so the rivets must be installed near the edges. Check out their website, they sell manual riveters, air riveters and the rivets themselves: aircraftspruce.com Their catalog is full of stuff you didn't know you needed.
The easiest way to make nice looking rivets is with a rivet Squeezer. The only hold back to them is sometimes you can't get to where you need to rivet depending on what your working on. Since I have no idea what part of the seat your doing I can't tell you if they would work or not. You can buy a pneaumatic squeezer or a hand squeezer but I really hope you get soft rivets if you do it by hand or you'll have a hell of a time squeezing them. I'm a aircraft structures guy in the Airforce so if you need any advice let me know. You can use the rivet gun but I'd practice a bunch on something besides your seat first, its not as easy as it looks. I wish I was at my home station I could send you a bunch of rivets I have laying around at home for free but I won't be home for another month... Well good luck -Zipp
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