Riveting info?

[nick daring]

I have a project where I would like to rivet a row of basic smooth round rivet heads. I have a pop rivet gun but that style of rivet doesn't have the nice clean look I'm going for and I would like to avoid just gluing down fake rivet heads.

Is it possible to do "real" rivets at home without a professional pneumatic rivet gun. I'm sure there must be, but I'm having trouble finding any good info.

Nick

 

[juno]

Do a search on eBay for armor rivets. I used them in a welding project. They have a nice solid mushroom head. You will need to drill a hole for them though. I used JBWeld to hold mine in (the back of the project was inaccessible).

 

[James Kenobi 1138]

You could try upholstery tacks.

 

[motman241]

Tandy Leather sells them. I'm sure other craft stores do, too.

 

[Entropy]

As Juno said, you can get a variety of domed rivets on ebay, sold for SCA armor making. The JBWeld idea sounds good for a prop. If you want to really rivet something with them, you just drill your hole in your stock, run the rivet through, clip the excess off the end and then pien the backside with a ball-pien hammer. Basically you're tapping around the edge to mushroom the other side as well, making the rivet grip the stock. If you hit straight down, the whole column of the rivet will expand and become kind of barrel shaped (which is not good if you're trying to make something articulated). If you want to keep the nice domed look on the visible side, you can use a rivet set or just work against a block of lead to keep the head from flattening out while you're piening the back. It's not too tough with a little practice, and doesn't require any expensive tools.