[Ryan Dognaux]

If you have photos of where your rivets failed, please post them. That will make this discussion 1000% more beneficial to your team and other teams.

Your rivets failed most likely due to a poor design - either you're using rivets that are too small (we use 5/32", sometimes 3/16"), not using enough rivets, need a better gusset design, too high of stress to the affected area, etc.

We've used versa-construction with rivets and gussets for 3 years now and have been very pleased. It's simple, our students can build almost anything with it, and we've had no failures that weren't our own fault due to a poor design.

Buy a pneumatic rivet gun and a compressor if you can manage it - it will make your assembly go so much faster and we've found that they hold just as well if not better than ones done by a hand riveting tool.