Buy Air Tickets Online

Monday, May 8, 2006

How long should a rivet be before driving or squeezing?

Several builders and customers of aircraft tools have asked how long a rivet should be before they drive or squeeze the rivet. The simple answer is the shank of the rivet should stick out 1-1/2 times the shank diameter before driving. There is a link to a mil-spec above that has the exact measurements in Table 3. If you follow the 1-1/2 times the shank diameter rule you will always be pretty close. Hope this helps those of you who may not have heard this before. Glenna

Tuesday, May 2, 2006

Dimpling Block - Setting Perfect AN426 Rivets

I have had several questions on the earlier explaination of making a dimpling block to set AN426 rivets. A couple of photos have been added to this link to show what the dimpling block looks like and how it is used to set near perfect rivets. This process will set the rivet in the skin before actually driving the rivet. The result is that the rivet and skins will fit nicely together. When the rivet is actually driven this will produce the best quality flush rivet.