Pop Rivets made easy!

[Peter Cook 6Participant @petercook6]

I needed to replace the sails on a small decorative windmill. The windmill base ( and spinner) are probably about 70 years old, made for my wife by her father when she was very small. I replaced the house and sails about 10 years ago, but the rain had got into the wooden spars and the recent storms were too much for a couple of them.

I decided to replace them with aluminium, and as I had an old 11″ pop rivet gun I planned to rivet the cross pieces onto the spars. After drilling the requisite 136 holes, I set to to rivet the first sail together. Don’t know if its my slightly arthritic thumbs or age doing away with hand strength, but I could only just set the 3mm rivets with the hand tool, and needed to add a couple of 18″ tubes to the handles to have any hope of setting the 4mm ones. After one sail I decided a different approach was needed, and found this unit for <£13 – next day delivery.

Attached to a hand drill it worked like a charm. Way faster than my attempts with the hand rivet gun – and no pains in my hands.

Seems reasonably well made for the price, works well and really saves the effort. Best £13 I have spent on tools in a long time. It probably wouldn’t survive 1000’s of operations, but If you are planning to put50-100 pop rivets in something, it may be useful to take a look.

[DC31kParticipant @dc31k]

Could you X-ray it or dismantle it so we can see how the rotary motion is converted to an axial pull (and how it resets after the rivet shank snaps)? Thanks.

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

I suspect a leadscrew and nut arrangement Hence the reversable powertool to rewind/reset ! Very neat ! Noel.

[Peter Cook 6Participant @petercook6]

Noel is right, I think. Next time I am in the workshop I will take a look. The silver section unscrews from the body to facilitate extraction of a stuck arbour (I bent one !). There is a big circlip just inside the back of the body.

The thick black body section closest to the drill seems to contain a leadscrew ( attached to the spindle)  and a nut which is connected to three jaws inside the silver section. With the drill in reverse the jaws move to the front and open, at which point some form of ratchet kicks in (it clicks). Inserting the rivet arbour and running the drill forward draws the jaws back into the silver part, grips the rivet arbour and pulls it to set the rivet. The rivet in the material stops the jaws rotating with the leadscrew and causes it to wind in. When the arbour snaps the jaws rotate with the arbour and motion stops. Reversing the drill sends the jaws forward again ejecting the used arbour and resetting for the next rivet.

Very quick 10-15 seconds per rivet.

[Bo’sunParticipant @bosun58570]

Hello Peter, what a charming Windmill for the garden.  After all that hard work, a covering to protect the roof might be worth considering.

Did the tool work on 4mm rivets?

For £13.00 it looks like it might be a reasonable buy.  Oh well, more money for the Peoples Republic of China.

[Peter Cook 6Participant @petercook6]

The roof has a layer of heavy duty roofing felt (the sort that the professionals apply with a big butane torch) glued to it. It has survived the 10 years very well.

The tool worked just as well on the 4mm rivets as the 3mm. I could just set the 3mm with the drill on “high” speed, but there was insufficient torque to set the 4mm ones. The drill stalled. Going down to low range on the drill fixed that – the 4mm ones went in with no effort beyond holding the side handle firmly.

At £13 delivered to my door by next day courier, I shudder to think how much the wholesale cost might be!

PS Ebay will do you the same device for less than a tenner!!

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Excellent looking tool, Peter … duly noted !!

… and the windmill has come-up very nicely too.

 

A refreshingly cheery end to my day … thanks.

MichaelG.

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

I have been thinking about getting one and am glad to hear positive comments from Peter.

[Peter Cook 6Participant @petercook6]

For dc31k  and anyone else interested. I took it apart. As Noel guessed it is leadscrew based.

It is a neat design. The Leadscrew – with a thrust bearing – screws into the back of the nut. The other end of the long nut unit carries three spring loaded jaws. I assume they are in a taper which wedges them together as the tension on the rivet arbour increases. That whole unit slides into the black body which is hexagonal to match the nut. The silver tube carries the anvil and screws on over the jaws. One neat feature is the length of the anvils. The larger the aperture the longer the rear extension, and that ensures the jaws are forced open to release the arbour  when the leadscrew is fully reversed and the jaws pushed onto the back of the anvil. For bigger rivets the jaws will be deeper in the nut nose.

The only weakness I can see is that the “clicking” ratchet when the jaws are reset is actually the leadscrew coming out of the nut, and the nut chattering under the spring pressure on the first thread of the leadscrew. After heavy use that would be the most likely part to wear and fail.

But for <£13 inc vat and next day delivery I think it looks a bargain.

[DC31kParticipant @dc31k]

Just wanted to say thankyou for your efforts. It is an interesting design.

I have used a Gesipa one for work and listening to it, I think it must work on a similar principle, but has auto-reverse. On the Gesipa, once the rivet snaps, the motor stops and reverses. I guess it must have a microswitch or sensor at each end of the travel.

In case anyone is looking at these, for roughly three times the price you paid, there is a self-contained one available that is compatible with Makita 18v batteries.

[An OtherParticipant @another21905]

I have the same problem as Peter: I simply could not operate a ‘pliers” type rivetter – not helped by a poor design leading to the operating levers of the rivetter being too wide apart and difficult to hold. Then I found a ‘lazy tong’ rivetter – this is so much easier to use with any size of pop rivet. Its only drawback is that it is rather long when extended before setting the rivet – about 60cms in my case, so can be a bit difficult to fit in small spaces. I understand they come in different sizes, so there may be smaller ones than mine.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, all the Lazy Tong riveters I’ve used have been around the same length when they are extended, but they are faster to use, although the 5 & 6mm rivets take a bit of pushing with them. The best pop riveter I have used was a pneumatic one, which collected all the pins into a container attached to the gun, and you just had to pull a trigger like what you have on any pistol drill, but that was an industrial one, which was rather pricy at the time, they seem to be a bit more affordable now.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/air-riveter/s?k=air+riveter

I’ve got a long two handle one similar to the one in the link below, and it will do up to 6mm Ali rivets fairly easy, and I do prefer these to Lazy Tong ones.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nielsen-Chrome-Handled-Long-Riveter/dp/B001LPC90M/ref=sr_1_26?crid=2KXELLVOHBOWR&keywords=lever%2Briveter&qid=1707563229&sprefix=lever%2Briveter%2Caps%2C332&sr=8-26&th=1

I may just get one of those that can be used with a battery drill.

Regards Nick.

[DC31k]

On DC31k Said:

Could you X-ray it or dismantle it so we can see how the rotary motion is converted to an axial pull (and how it resets after the rivet shank snaps)? Thanks.

Yeah sure, give me a moment to get my X-ray machine fired up, or get on the waiting list at my local hospital ! 😁

[John Doe 2]

On John Doe 2 Said:

Yeah sure, give me a moment to get my X-ray machine fired up

Have a look through the archives: maybe Herr Röentgen was an early contributor to the Model Engineer and Amateur Electrician and published some of his designs there.

[vic neweyParticipant @vicnewey60017]

glad to see the sails are correctly orientated to turn anticlockwise,  99.9% of windmills blades turn this way but countless models I’ve seen have the sails going clockwise. Even the world famous Moulin Rouge windmill turns the wrong way!

[vic newey]

On vic newey Said:

glad to see the sails are correctly orientated to turn anticlockwise,  99.9% of windmills blades turn this way but countless models I’ve seen have the sails going clockwise. Even the world famous Moulin Rouge windmill turns the wrong way!

That’s down to the father in law. He made the centre spinner 70+ years ago and put the twists in.

[Author]

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