Is riveting that much better?

[Gdeaver]

Glue it, screw it, bolt it, rivet it, weld it. If the design is flawed it will fail.

[Trent B]

Case in point, for any large pieces of sheet metal (like many of the bots I have seen riveted) more rivets is probably better but I suppose its easier sometimes to bolt things like that together as sheet metal gussets would make it non KISS.

[Alex_Miller]

Last year we made this super awesome looking shooter guard for our turret wheel and it took us well into the morning, needless to say we forgot about rivets...

If you can't get a screw in there make sure not to forget about the rivets.

[,4lex S.]

Yes, yes it is.

For one thing, as awesome as welding is you are usually going to have two problems:
1) Frame distortion- Every frame I have designed that has been welded has warped to some degree (especially aluminium), this is not a happy thing to deal with (wheel contact, conveyor alignment... ).
2) Skill- My team was lucky to have a veteran welder around, but I have seen what happens when a new student tries to weld aluminium. It becomes more like modern art, and less like robot frame .

Bolts lose in the weight and remaining tight categories.

Rivets are light, easily installed and uninstalled, and create pretty solid joints when done correctly. I think every FRC robot has at least one application where rivets would be the most useful of all fasteners.

[samir13k]

im glad to see 1501 is known when it comes to riveting
our team has used over 10,000 rivets on our robots so far, almost 2000 in some robots. They are made out of a monocoque design, which is what aircraft use. solely sheetmetal and rivets, providing a strong structure. i think youll enjoy some photos of our bots.

www.huntingtonrobotics.org

all we use are hand rivet guns and a pneumatic rivet gun (used rarely)... i have spent all nighters riveting the bots together. but it creates an amazing end product. if you would like more info, pm me and i can get it to you. and yes we do make errors, but you can just use the same drill bit you used to make the original whole and drill the rivet back out. almost as if it were never there.

and klekos are a neccessity when building with this many rivets

[R.C.]

Samir,

The link doesn't seem to be working.

-RC

[Chexposito]

like most people said rivets are nice for more permanent uses. you have to drill them out if you need to undo the fastening.

i would suggest staying with the nut and bolt, but use locking washers or loctite. Or use the nuts with the nylon in the tips.