[Kevin Sevcik]

We use a lot of the aluminum 3/16" structural rivets to build superstructure from 1/16" square tube and bent plate. Aluminum because drilling out steel rivets is a royal pain, and we never need that strength anyways. Structural because they seem to have better pull-up and hole filling, and I can never get everyone to properly fit and drill every joint. In addition to the above advice, we've found that fit-up is important. If your fitup is bad and you have a gap after riveting, then the rivet and its hole is the only thing taking up the load. I'd imagine your tape + rivet thing mitigates this slightly with the tape taking some of the shear load.