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Thursday, January 19, 2006

Deburring Rivet Holes

A lot of discussion centers around deburring of rivet holes. After drilling and installing hundreds of thousands, if not a million rivets I can say with some authority you do not need to deburr rivet holes in .020 or .032 aluminum. What is left in the hole is not a burr, but is actually a chip left over from the drilling operation. You can easily remove chips by disassembling the parts, putting on a pair of gloves and lightly running your hand across the drilled sheets. What must be avoided is removing the aluminum material. The holes should be crisp and clean, not deburred by removing material. If you do have an occasional burr (a piece that you cannot remove by rubbing) you can remove it by taking a countersink bit and lightly turning it by hand to remove the burr.