AEV- Rivets

[tiger-bailey]

Anyone have any advice on pop rivet guns to install AEV Rocker Guards? I have never used a pop rivet gun before, and my first experiment with a Craftsman Pop Rivet gun (approved for stainless steel rivets) didn?t go well, not enough force to cut the rivets. Any suggestions other than go to the gym? When I depressed the handle on the gun it completely compressed but didn?t snip the rivet. I called several tool rental places in Albuquerque about a pneumatic rivet gun (AEV?s recommendation), but apparently they are inherently dangerous and no one in town rents one.

Thanks,
Rob

[mrblaine]

Originally posted by tiger-bailey
Anyone have any advice on pop rivet guns to install AEV Rocker Guards? I have never used a pop rivet gun before, and my first experiment with a Craftsman Pop Rivet gun (approved for stainless steel rivets) didn?t go well, not enough force to cut the rivets. Any suggestions other than go to the gym? When I depressed the handle on the gun it completely compressed but didn?t snip the rivet. I called several tool rental places in Albuquerque about a pneumatic rivet gun (AEV?s recommendation), but apparently they are inherently dangerous and no one in town rents one.

Thanks,
Rob

Harbor Freight sells one. It works. Use it and then toss it on Ebay when you are done.

btw- when you compressed the handles, did you know that it sometimes takes several squeezes on them to pop the rivet?

[Paradiddle]

After the amount of stainless pop rivets Blaine and I used on my XJ armor I will try to avoid using them again.

Can you use bolts?

[Jerry Bransford]

I also had trouble popping ss rivets until I finally found a much larger pop rivet tool at my Home Depot. While the larger version didn't make it exactly easy, at least it became possible to finally pop all of them without killing myself from the effort.

And like Blaine points out, it takes multiple pulls of the handle to finally set them.

[tiger-bailey]

Alright, I found a redneck solution (NC is my home state). I used Channel Locks to depress the Pop Rivet Gun all the way down. It would have been a lot easier with a second set of hands, but I got it done. Stainless Steel Rivets are a PITA. Before the Channel Locks, no matter how many pulls on the Pop Rivet Gun I could not break the rivets.

Thanks again for the suggestions and help.
Rob