Brian the form and size of the dome that you want to create is dictated by the grip length, the final closed length between heads, and the diameter of the rivet itself. The easiest way to get the right size is to refer to copy of Machinery's handbook or similar tome which will have tables to help. You may need to extrapolate and then experiment to get the final size right.

Teh hole in the set is not that important, just a bit bigger than the rivit shank so something like 3.3mm on an 1/8" rivit, 4.8mm on 3/16" and so on.

The amount projecting is slightly affected buy your snap as they do vary a bit but the correct projection for imperial snap head rivits is 1.429xD, treat this as a starting point and do a few tests in a scrap of known thickness and then adjust the lengths to sue whatever thicknesses of material are being joined

Sapphire Have a useful table of sizes for all their rivits

The OP may be looking at some classic texts which show, after closing, an upsetting tool with a limitted depth hole being used to cause the trunk of the rivet to swell prior to being domed out with a shaped snap. Trouble is it doesn't work with cold rivets as they are too hard to deform like that. (Similar to a blacksmith 'upsetting' a bar by hammering the end not the side to cause a swelling at the part that has been heated)

The Arrand tool is great will crop anything

Bob

Home use,

Springbok put some pics of his and phone details to Arrand on this forum under "Rivet Set Dimensions" just 12 months back.

Bob D

Brian, I use the set to push the layers together, this does not start to compress the rivit and then unlike Terry I go straight at it with the rivit snap and a few blows are all that is needed.

The ball pein is ok if you are working with a rivit in a nice flat accessible position but once you have formed a couple of hundred rivits on traction engine wheels where you can't get in with the hammer you soon get the knack of only using a snap. The other risk of using teh ball pein is that if you take a lot of little taps at the rivit you can start to work harden the end which makes it harder to form the final snap.

I have seen the staged formers used on cold rivits with good results usually in conjunction with a jig to hole the formers upright and a hydralic press. Not really needed on anything below 3/16" though. I'll see if I can find some pictures, the ones I know of are only viewable if you donate to teh particular forum.

I also cut mine with either mini bolt croppers or side cutters

Couple of bits of riviting here and here

Edited By JasonB on 09/01/2013 13:20:44

Arrand

The Forge

Knossington Nr Oakham
LE15 8LN
0116454566
I bought mine in 2006
I not only use it for cropping rivets but bolts wire you name it.
Have a look at my my photos near the bottom you wil see a pic of it I took for someone else.
They did not have a web site at the time but that may have changed
Part Number 67-100

Bob