We we’re riveting with an ACE hand riveter when it failed and upon further inspection we found that the part that grips the river had broken. We went and bought a fancier Stanley riveter but that riveter started breaking the rivets too early. Essentially the rivet wasn’t breaking where it should but really high up on the stem. We just purchased a pneumatic riveter from Harbor Freight to make life easier and in the beginning the riveter worked just fine. After a couple hundred rivets though we started to notice the same thing with some rivets where the top would break off too high.
The rivets are from BoltDepot and they worked fine with the ACE hand riveter. Is there something we are doing wrong or does anyone else have experience with this?
It typically means you’ve got a bad rivet gun, a bad batch/brand of rivets, or you have some bad technique (rivet gun not straight up and down or you aren’t pressing the gun flat against the rivet). I personally haven’t had a good box of rivets from ace, half of them tend to end up with a broken mandrill.
Maybe you are using the wrong grip range rivets for the material to are joining? Are you leaning it over as you pull?
I’ve been though a lot of hand riveters (Arrow, Marson, etc) I’ve come to the conclusion that they all suck. I’ve broken and jammed just about every one of them. The least sucky one is a genuine Pop brand. I haven’t wrecked or jammed that one yet and it still pulls well.
Milwaukee M12 cordless riveter is very worth the money.
The HF pneumatic one is okay. The Campbell Hausfield pneumatic one is better.
It still breaks cheap rivets early sometimes (rarely) but we usually just cut the tails off with a pair of old diagonal cutters and then file them smooth.
They’re the correct grip range. We followed the manufacturers specs. And yes, we are leaning over as we pull to ensure the riveter stays perpendicular.
How much have you spent trying out all the cheap rivet tools?
It is totally worth it. It pulls the rivets smoothly and consistently, it doesn’t yank it suddenly like a pneumatic riveter. It is also virtually impossible to get it to jam, especially if using 3/16 rivets.
You will get over the price very quickly and find yourself wanting to use more rivets on your robot.
(Janky frc hack: As long as you have plenty of rivets in your pattern (it sounds like you do, unless you’re building three or four robots…) It’s not necessarily a big deal to have a couple rivets without good bulbing. This is a hs robotics competition, not industry.)
I’m a little concerned about “bend it so it stays upright” - the rivet gun body shouldn’t move while the rivet is being pulled…
You could try lubricating the pneumatic gun with some light machine oil or similar - read your instructions manual it will have a recommendation. Some guns also expect some oil to come through the pneumatic line that feeds it…
This riveter goes on sale all the time for $50. Pair that with their cheapest pancake compressor and you’re flying through rivets for under $100. This combination is on its fifth year of Gaelhawk abuse.
Cheap rivets do unpredictable things. The ones that you buy in the hardware store are cheap rivets. Where the stem breaks is more the function of the rivet and not the tool. I try to use “Q” style rivets. they have a retained stem that adds substantially to the rivet strength.
One advantage of a Pneumatic riveter is you get a steady pull when setting the rivet. We have been using the Harbor Freight riveter for years. It does fine with Al rivets. A industrial quality riveter is many times the price. The cost/benefit ratio is not there.
I agree, I have seen way more issues caused by poor quality rivets that cheap riveters. I have seen plenty of hardware store rivets where the step fails before the rivet is pulled completely.
Our team uses these from McMaster Carr https://www.mcmaster.com/97517a050
Lower cost that anything from a hardware store and good quality. They have always shipped us US made rivets. Obviously you need to pick the size and length appropriate for you application.
We also us an inexpensive pneumatic rivet gun and are quite happy with it, much easier on the students and more consistent.