Rivet Questions

Ted

Ted

The pilot formerly known as Twin Engine Ted
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For building the Cobra, I'll be using rivets. People complain about it being "a whole ton of rivets", of course none of those people have built an aircraft.

I'm curious what people use for a rivet gun. Obviously I'll need to order clecos as well, I don't think those are included. I have a 60 gallon air compressor so I was figuring I'd get an air powered one but can go electric.

I was also planning on just using one of my electric drills (I have both corded and cordless variable speed) but if there's a reason why air ones are better I'd consider adding another tool to the cabinet. I have a cheap air drill but never use it.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
For building the Cobra, I'll be using rivets. People complain about it being "a whole ton of rivets", of course none of those people have built an aircraft.

I'm curious what people use for a rivet gun. Obviously I'll need to order clecos as well, I don't think those are included. I have a 60 gallon air compressor so I was figuring I'd get an air powered one but can go electric.
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Since you said electric I'm guessing you mean blind (i.e. 'pop') rivets. Can't help you there. If they're driven rivets, what size? I used a relatively cheap ATS 2x gun and Avery hand squeezer for all the -3 and -4 rivets on an RV-4 with no issues, although I'd replace it with a 3x if I were doing it again.

Nauga,
smashed
 
Ted DuPuis said:
For building the Cobra, I'll be using rivets. People complain about it being "a whole ton of rivets", of course none of those people have built an aircraft.

I'm curious what people use for a rivet gun. Obviously I'll need to order clecos as well, I don't think those are included. I have a 60 gallon air compressor so I was figuring I'd get an air powered one but can go electric.

I was also planning on just using one of my electric drills (I have both corded and cordless variable speed) but if there's a reason why air ones are better I'd consider adding another tool to the cabinet. I have a cheap air drill but never use it.
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Blind (pop) rivets, or solid? For solid rivets, you'll want a rivet gun unless you can get to all of them with a squeezer. Aircraft tool places typically sell kits with a rivet gun, a selection of rivet sets, and a bucking bar or two. I'd recommend a 3X rivet gun for -3 and -4 rivets, and it will work for some -5s as well if you're careful.

A nice high speed air drill, like a Sioux, is a joy to use. Lightweight, quiet, high speed. It's not really a requirement, though -- a battery powered drill will work just fine. It's just bigger and heavier. A cheap air drill buys you essentially nothing, I'd rather use a battery powered drill.

For blind rivets, I have a hand rivet tool. It's OK for a few dozen at a time, but if I were doing hundreds or thousands I'd want one of the pneumatic rivet pullers.
 
I have settled on battery powered drills for RV work unless it is a session with hundreds of holes - air or electric are better for that.

For driven rivets, a pneumatic gun or squeezer is the ticket, but for a bunch of pulled rivets, a cheap gun like from harbor freight fits the bill well. (The RV-10 has hundreds of pulled rivets securing the floorboards.)

The HF guns were what we used on the One Week Wonder RV-12 too.
 
Pretty certain they're all blind/pop rivets. Cherrymax rivets are often used if people require more rivets than provided.

I definitely do want an air tool for this. If nothing else, my kids will be working on this with me and there's no realistic way for them to pop rivets without a gun. I'd' also rather delay the onset of carpel tunnel as long as possible on my hands. :)
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I'll be using rivets.
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How/where/purpose/material you will be using the rivets for will decide which type and installation method. Using the wrong rivet in the wrong place with the wrong tool will create more issues than they are worth. For example, in splicing body panels it can be easier to PK screw them together, spot weld, and sand down.

On drills, depends on the material you are working with. The reason the aviation side uses air drills is they spool up fast and cut cleaner holes in aluminum.
 
My experience with the HF pneumatic was not good. I just got through the RV10 floor before the 2nd one failed.

I strongly recommend a good quality air drill. They are light and like some one said, aluminum likes high RPM drilling. I never seriously considered electric drilling.

Generally speaking, one of the most informative events during my build was attending a builder class where they had 3 or 4 different brands or styles of each tool, including squeezers, guns, countersinks, cleco pliers, etc. we were encouraged to try each of them.

It was a real eye opener in the sense that each student had strong preferences for one flavor or a another and those preferences were all over the map. Some of us even decided that certain tools weren’t needed at all. Difficult to replicate but something to about.

Good luck with the build. Still trying to figure out what a Cobra is...


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Cobra. Two place sports car. I was going to say Ford’s version of a Corvette, but they don’t compare.
 
And then after you buy tools, do a few thousand practice runs on some scrap sheet so you can come close to making them pretty!
 
ATS 3x kit, the better one. Very happy with it. I use full pressure and the trigger lets me modulate the force nicely. I have a hand squeezer but not much of a fan on 1/8" rivets. Works OK on 3/32" but I still prefer the gun if I can use it. If you use CherryMax, the more expensive air riveter (black one) from Harbor Freight works great. Just finished up a Aztec cowl STC.

https://www.harborfreight.com/14-in-air-hydraulic-riveter-62685.html
https://www.aircraft-tool.com/shop/detail.aspx?id=ATS-3XPK

IMG_20180807_121828383.jpg
 
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I use a lot of HF tools and like them for what they are; cheap and functional and very often short lived. After all, I’m not running a production shop.

Even the cheap squeezer is fine for a small job like that Aztec cowling (or a pair of them). They’re even okay for an RV10 build where the number of ‘pop’ rivets is in the many dozens. But I like good tools as much as anyone and get good stuff where needed.


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As someone who has scratch built an airplane with over 10,000 pop rivets (sonex) I can say that there isn't a reason to spend more than $30 on the harbor freight rivet gun. It is cheap and it works. The only stipulation is that you need to check the oil level when you buy it. For the drill, it is personal preference. I found air drills more of a nuisance than a help. Having to drag around an air hose that kept getting in the way was a pain. After finishing the tail I switched to a battery powered cordless drill and finished the rest of the plane with it.

Keith
 
I've bought a fair number of HF air tools over the years for farm use, impact wrenches, die grinders and such. The key to any longevity is to lubricate the hell out of them before first use. Apparently the Chinese don't believe in assembly lube.
 
kmacht said:
As someone who has scratch built an airplane with over 10,000 pop rivets (sonex) I can say that there isn't a reason to spend more than $30 on the harbor freight rivet gun. It is cheap and it works. The only stipulation is that you need to check the oil level when you buy it. For the drill, it is personal preference. I found air drills more of a nuisance than a help. Having to drag around an air hose that kept getting in the way was a pain. After finishing the tail I switched to a battery powered cordless drill and finished the rest of the plane with it.

Keith
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I bought the cheaper HF rivet gun and it would not pull a CherryMax rivet. Maybe I got a bad one but I exchanged it for the better one and have used it hundreds of times on CherryMax and similar rivets.
 
alfadog said:
I bought the cheaper HF rivet gun and it would not pull a CherryMax rivet. Maybe I got a bad one but I exchanged it for the better one and have used it hundreds of times on CherryMax and similar rivets.
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John,

CherryMax rivets require a special gun to pull them. They should not be considered "pop" rivets. CherryMax guns cost in the hundreds of $$, as you probably now know.
 
Ray Eaker said:
John,

CherryMax rivets require a special gun to pull them. They should not be considered "pop" rivets. CherryMax guns cost in the hundreds of $$, as you probably now know.
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That black HF gun pulls them just fine.

:)

IMAG0817.jpg IMAG0872.jpg
 
I have the ATS Pro Palm drill and it is VERY nice. Variable speed trigger and quiet. I had a buddy who ordered one and had to wait almost 3 months to get it so I don't know what the problem in the supply system at ATS is but it is worth waiting for.
 
The advantage of air drills is they're very light weight. So they're good if you're doing something where you need to hold it for long periods of time. The downside is the noise. The drills themselves are loud (at least the ones I've used are). And they suck down huge gulps of air so your compressor cycles a lot while using them. Wear ear protection and have a compressor with a big tank and they're not bad. But definitely need to use them with one of those light weight super flexible air hoses.
 
Greg Bockelman said:
Cobra. Two place sports car. I was going to say Ford’s version of a Corvette, but they don’t compare.
Click to expand...

Greg got it right.

https://www.factoryfive.com/roadster/mk4/

Juliet Hotel said:
The advantage of air drills is they're very light weight. So they're good if you're doing something where you need to hold it for long periods of time. The downside is the noise. The drills themselves are loud (at least the ones I've used are). And they suck down huge gulps of air so your compressor cycles a lot while using them. Wear ear protection and have a compressor with a big tank and they're not bad. But definitely need to use them with one of those light weight super flexible air hoses.
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I have a 60 gallon Ingersoll compressor. I forget what the flow rate is, but it's pretty good.

I'll look for an air drill and proper rivet gun.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Greg got it right.

https://www.factoryfive.com/roadster/mk4/



I have a 60 gallon Ingersoll compressor. I forget what the flow rate is, but it's pretty good.

I'll look for an air drill and proper rivet gun.
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I’m guessing the aluminum sheet work is a sideline, this looks like a fiberglass/composite project as well.

For cutting composites or aluminum, I’d suggest the two most useful tools to have is a pneumatic die grinder with an abrasive disk for big stuff and a Dremel with their abrasive disk mandrel for the little stuff. You’ll need all 60 gallons for the die grinder.

Nothing ruins tools and bits faster than composites.


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The riveting is primarily for the floor pans etc. It's a fiberglass body, yes.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I have a 60 gallon Ingersoll compressor. I forget what the flow rate is, but it's pretty good.
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I have a 60 gallon compressor as well. But because of the noise and how often it makes my compressor cycle, I can count the number of times I've actually used my air drill on one hand with fingers left over.

To be fair, although I did work for a bit in an aircraft maintenance shop doing restorations and general maintenance, I haven't built an airplane yet. So I've never had to do things like final drill hundreds of rivet holes in an aluminum skin. I could probably see the air drill coming in handy for things like that and because I have it, I'll likely try it for things like that when the time comes. But knowing how many times I've actually found it useful for anything else, I think I'd be inclined to use my airplane tool budget for something like a decent nibbler rather than an air drill if if I were building a tool collection from scratch.
 
Bill Watson said:
Nothing ruins tools and bits faster than composites.
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And, nothing makes unwanted composites go away faster or better than a wire wheel in an angle grinder. (I use an electric grinder)
885911360555.jpg
 
Another vote for HF tools. They've been the primary tools used for a slow-build RV-7A and a QB RV-10 - not to mention how many pieces of heavy farm equipment over the years.

Use an air drill when you have a bunch of holes to go in one sitting. Save the heavier battery drill for one-off's. I will say that the little rechargeable handheld screwdrivers are good for deburring, too: https://www.blackanddecker.com/en-u...-max-lithium-rechargeable-screwdriver/bdcs20c Lightweight and not so much torque that it jerks your wrist every time you start it.
 
With the Cobra kit arrived, I'm getting ready to get some of those tools on the way and also some deburring bits.

What does the brain trust recommend for deburring blind holes? A lot of the holes involve drilling into the frame. 1/8" holes/rivets. So if I do anything to deburr that side I need some kind of tool like this:

https://www.mscdirect.com/browse/tn...MIs6fMt6Tp3QIVGJ7ACh2LTgKNEAQYASABEgLVk_D_BwE

The manual doesn't even talk about deburring of any sort. It just says drill the holes and rivet them. I don't see a lot of reference to people doing that sort of treatment so I might just be thinking aviation. None of the riveting on this car is structural in the sense that it is on an airplane, although it does make up things like the floorboards, etc.
 
The touching faces are most important to deburr for strength. The face the rivet head sits on is next in that it affects how flush the visible head sits. The blind interior is the least important area to deburr. I think in this application, you will be way ahead of average if you get the other 3 faces and ignore the blind one.
 
-KLB- said:
The touching faces are most important to deburr for strength. The face the rivet head sits on is next in that it affects how flush the visible head sits. The blind interior is the least important area to deburr. I think in this application, you will be way ahead of average if you get the other 3 faces and ignore the blind one.
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Exactly.

You might try this more pencil like tool. Surprising how many places the fat handle gets in the way. I had versions of both and ended deburring an entire kit with the one tool. If this is the one I had, it has the proper steel and never wore out.
https://www.faucetdepot.com/faucet...I37fRvanq3QIVxlYNCh1MQQuNEAQYAiABEgKVvPD_BwE


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One thing no one has mentioned is making sure you have respiratory protection and an appropriately rated HEPA vac when you are grinding/cutting/drilling (in other words changing) composites. They can get really nasty for your lungs. The old farts may not care anymore, but if you're young(ish) like me and want to use your lungs for many decades to come, then make sure you do your due diligence for the materials you're working with and protect yourself and your shop.

And make sure you select the right rivets or other fasteners with the composites (if you're using rivets). You need to use titanium rivets and fasteners because the aluminum will definitely corrode. We even had some issues with the titanium rivets over time in Hawaii. Consider the environment you will be flying and storing your aircraft in. Corrosion control was a HUGE part of my job working on Hawks in Hawaii, and to some extent Germany. Wasn't really even an afterthought in Afghanistan. I would suggest you get as knowledgeable about corrosion control as you can before your build, figure out what materials you can acquire and use in your state, and how to do it safely and responsibly. A lot of the "good stuff" is highly toxic.

If any of this seems overly elementary, my apologies. I don't know your background, but wanted to point out some of the smaller details that are easily overlooked when looking at the enormity of a build. As for myself, I have always wanted to do a home build myself, and will eventually get to it. I spent 8 years maintaining Blackhawks in the Army before dropping my Warrant packet and moving to the front seat.
 
I'm not familiar with the Cobra. Is it a kit or scratch built plane? Got any pics?
 
DutchRoller said:
I'm not familiar with the Cobra. Is it a kit or scratch built plane? Got any pics?
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There are several manufacturers of Cobra kits; that's what Ted is building. I believe he put a link in one of his posts.
 
When I was getting my A&P, I lusted over recoilless rivet guns. Don't even know if they make them anymore, but if so, I believe using one would be worth it. If I build an aluminum plane, I'll probably get one, but currently, I'm leaning toward composite.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
There are several manufacturers of Cobra kits; that's what Ted is building. I believe he put a link in one of his posts.
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Yes. I saw his other thread after I had posted on this one. The other thread makes it obvious that he is referring to a car. His OP on this thread sounded like he was building a plane called a cobra.
 
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