Like many other teams, 2815 has done a lot with rivets over the past few seasons (1/8", almost exclusively). However, even without getting 1501-class rivet counts we always seem to go through two or three riveters each year. (These are the standard, $20-25 ones you find at Lowe’s or Ace Hardware.)
As we get ready for next build season, we’re trying to step our game up in some areas of assembly and want to know: What’s the best setup for riveting for an FRC team?
I’ve seen this post from Copioli a few years back, and a pneumatic rivet tool would certainly appear to speed some things up at the expense of having to add another big thing to the pit (the compressor). If this is the way, what does the group recommend for a compressor? (Harbor Freight’s got one for $40 as part of this weekend’s sales, but the reviews are littered with stories of it clunking out after only a couple of uses.)
What other common uses would an FRC team have for one? Grinding is out in the pits*, and we have plenty of drills. (My business degree is showing here.)
*There’s actually an air line in our shop, so we’ve got some liberties there.
I agree. There is a major difference between a manual and a pneumatic riveter. On my school’s OCCRA robot, we used a lot of rivets (since welding wasn’t allowed). We didn’t use small ones, though; we used 1/8th inch. We needed to pump our manual rivet gun several times to get it to snap. Then one day we lost it and our mentor told us that we had a pneumatic one. It worked with one trigger pull. Michaelabick is right. Once you see the difference, you’ll never use a manual riveter again.
We are looking at going with rivets the coming season, what kinda pneumatic rivet gun would you guys recommend?
We use pneumatic riveter from Marson and have been happy with it. We use mainly 3/16" rivets but go to 1/4" at times. For the quarter inch we use a Harbor Freight hand riveter. If I’d know we were going to do as much quarter inch as we do I might have gotten a pneumatic riveter that could handle that. Harbor freight has knock off versions of these but we haven’t tried those.
We use quarter inch not because we really need the strength typically but sometimes we’ll have brackets that are pre-drilled to .25" and it’s just easier to use those than to make custom ones at 3/16".
I have used my Marson hand 39000 Hp2 rivet gun for the past 24 years at work and it is still going strong. They have other modals and are sold by many stores. If you do not want to spend the money do not test a pneumatic riveting tool. Last year the arthritis kicked in and after pulling 3 3/16 steel rivets I borrowed a pneumatic for the last 13. It was great. If you have the money go pneumatic. If not by a good hand rivet tool and not a cheap one. They do a better job then the cheap ones and last longer.
I know these are from harbor freight but these are so cheap its hard not to get them. We’ve had our guy since 2010 with no issues. We originally planned to use it for a season and get a new one. We have new kids each year (like everyone else) and they manage to find a way to break/mess up the assembly tools. So for them to break this guy is really no big deal, its also mega easy to repair. Also riveting 3/16" or bigger by hand is a pain in the rear unless you have this guy:
IMO, most small hand riveters are pretty awful for sizes 3/16" or 1/4". We like the pneumatic guy and the big daddy. Very rarely do we need to use the small hand guy (we do have a few tho).
I’m not sure which brand my team has, but we have a pneumatic riveter that we love very much. If you have many rivets to put in, it is much easier, faster (and more fun) to use a pneumatic riveter than a hand one.
While you are ordering your pneumatic pop rivet gun you should invest in some of these.
These are great to have in your tool box.
We don’t carry our compressor when we travel. We use the manual rivet guns in our travel tool box.
Take a look at our robot this year. We used about 200 rivets to put our robot together. We did a lot of lock and tab joints where we create a tab that fits in a rectangular notch to locate a part. We then rivet it together. Places with high stress have screws and pem nuts instead of rivets. We also made use of a csk punch tool to csk our pilot holes for the rivets. Keep in mind you don’t need a massive amount of rivets to join parts together.
Check out McMaster part #98716A100 . It’s a tool you chuck up in a portable drill, and uses the drill to pull the rivet mandrels. I found it occupies a pretty neat niche of needing a powered way to install a lot of rivets, but not wanting to invest in the expense of air powered tools (or, like me, making field service calls). It’s not as fast as air tools, but it’s still pretty quick and uses any normal electric drill with a chuck. Sure beats doing a lot of them by hand.
Have been using the non-pancake version of that compressor in our garage for 5 years now. No problems.
one note: The pressure gauge on that comes with the compressor does a very poor job of keeping a constant pressure coming out. Shouldn’t be much of an issue for riveting, but could cause troubles in other applications.
I have far above average grip strength (from working with tools often), and I still hate pulling rivets manually. Don’t ever use a pneumatic rivet puller unless you never want to manually pull a rivet ever again. We bought a Harbor Freight one but haven’t used it yet.
As royster44 mentioned, use the manual riveter at competitions, meaning you can ditch the compressor completely.
We have a Harbor Freight pneumatic riveter, but we have hardly used it so I cannot vouch for its durability. It pulls 1/4" aluminum rivets effortlessly.
In addition to the smaller hand riveters, we also have a " big daddy" hand riveter. In my estimation one could have assembled the George Washington bridge with it, as it appears to be built to last forever. Not inexpensive though.
1618 had that riveter as well. About $100 as I remember, but probably the coolest item in their arsenal. If the IFI kitbot had persisted, we’d have bought one by now for 2815. But with the C-Base, we just haven’t had the need for the 1/4" rivets that give it the reputation it has.
Pending the green light from the financiers, I think we’ll be acquiring this Harbor Freight one for next season. At $40, it only costs us two hand riveters (and we’ll blow through those anyway).
If you have the money go pneumatic. If not by a good hand rivet tool and not a cheap one. They do a better job then the cheap ones and last longer.