I'm riveting the aluminum panels onto my flatbed. I bought a whole bunch of these stainless steel rivets. My problem is that when I have been riveting down these panels the head is breaking off of the nail instead of the rivet tool cutting the nail (1/8" shank). Have you guys experienced this? Are stainless steel rivets more problematic? I used two different rivet tools and both of them did the same thing. Any suggestions?

Any advice would be nice as I would like to get this flatbed done.

:confused: Thanks

How long is the body of the rivet? the length of the rivet itself has to be alittle longer but still fairly close to the thickness of the joint. It sounds to me like your rivet might be too short and there is no room for it to expand so the nail just pulls through.

Originally posted by Paul Gagnon
How long is the body of the rivet? the length of the rivet itself has to be alittle longer but still fairly close to the thickness of the joint. It sounds to me like your rivet might be too short and there is no room for it to expand so the nail just pulls through.


The rivet sticks out past the metal at least an 1/8". The nail isn't pulling through, the head is pulling off (sounds like a firecracker when it happens) and then I am just pulling the wire through the rivet. There ends up being nothing in the rivet, although the rivet is forming nicely.

I've never riveted before so I was just wondering if this is common? Can I tweek my rivet tool in some way?

:confused:

Originally posted by liveaxle
The rivet sticks out past the metal at least an 1/8". The nail isn't pulling through, the head is pulling off (sounds like a firecracker when it happens) and then I am just pulling the wire through the rivet. There ends up being nothing in the rivet, although the rivet is forming nicely.

If the rivet is forming nicely then there is probably no problem at all. Sounds like it is working the way it should.

It sound like it's working right. There are closed head rivets if you don't want the hole in the middle:

http://www.emhart.com/products/pop/rivets.htm

Originally posted by Paul Gagnon


If the rivet is forming nicely then there is probably no problem at all. Sounds like it is working the way it should.


Well maybe I'm all washed up on this subject. I thought that the riveting tool was supposed to yank the nail up, then cut the nail right at the top of the rivet, leaving a short little section of the nail inside the rivet?

:confused:

Is this not what a riveting tool does?

Originally posted by Old Scout
It sound like it's working right. There are closed head rivets if you don't want the hole in the middle:

http://www.emhart.com/products/pop/rivets.htm


Thanks for the link Old Scout. It appears that I bought "tubular" style rivets, whereas I would have prefered "closed end" type rivet.

:( That sucks, maybe I'll buy some different rivets.