Subject: Grades of rivets

From: Robby Armstrong <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 1996 09:00:43 -0500 (CDT)

Hello,

What should I ask for to get a rivet that can be worked cold? 

Also, if someone would please explain the various types/hardness and sources
of rivets I would be grateful.

I ordered some 3/16 X1/2" and 1/8 X 1/2" rivets from a local fastener
company. When they arrived I thought they looked pretty hard and sure enough
they were very hard. I guess they were for working hot. I put them in my gas
forge and brought them up to a light yellow (as hot as mine gets) and let
them cool slowly. They are still very hard. I know that there are rivets
that are soft enough to work cold because I used them to replace my farm
mower teeth.

Sure would appreciate some words of wisdom.

Robby

Robby Armstrong
[email-masked]

---

From: Bob Bigelow <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 01 Aug 1996 10:48:41 -0700

Robby,
  We usually asked for "Dead Soft" rivets.  Rivets made only from pure
iron, no carbon, no nothing.  They will form like butter.  We got a box
of hard rivets once, sent it back.  The postage was far cheaper than the
time and frustration they would have caused.  The difference even in the
color of the rivets-out-of-the-box was striking.  The hard ones had a
whitish coating on them, the dead soft ones usually had a little scale
on the heads which we wire brushed off before use.  We usually bought
rivets in diameters we wanted, and only in 3" lengths, that way, we only
had five or six sizes in stock, then made a good, heavy duty, shear to
cut them to length.  The proper size was only a hammer blow away, and we
didn't have to rummage through a dozen un-labeled parts drawers to find
the right diameter x length.  We found that the supplier knew, or deduced
what dead soft meant, and supplied us with what we wanted.
  Hope this helps.
Bob

---

From: Michael Spencer <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 96 13:38:45 EDT

> I ordered some 3/16 X1/2" and 1/8 X 1/2" rivets from a local
> fastener company....they were very hard. I guess they were for working
> hot....I know that there are rivets that are soft enough to work cold
> because I used them to replace my farm mower teeth.

I bought 50# or so of 3/16" and 1/4" iron rivets said to have
come from a Massachusetts shipyard circa 1965. They're very handy but
certainly harder than the cutter bar rivets sold by my local Massey
Ferguson dealer. So I, too, 

> Sure would appreciate some words of wisdom.

about coping with the rivet hassle.

- Mike
-- 
Michael Spencer               (902) 543-8375
[email-masked]
URL: http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/mspencer/home.html
---