I spent a good chunk of last Friday and Saturday thrashing to get my
racecar ready to go ice-racing last Sunday. I made it, and we ran all six
races, but torn it up a bit in the process. Looks like I'm going to
repeat that process tonight and tomorrow.
A lot of the thrashing resulted from rivets that wouldn't pop. I have
a standard Arrow rivet gun...
( http://www.amazon.com/Arrow-RH200-Fastener-Riveter/dp/B00004Z2JG ) and
used a lot of different sizes, both steel and aluminum, but I had the
same problem with most of them. The mandrel would break, but the blind
end wouldn't expand enough to become larger than the hole.
At first, I thought they were just too cold, as I was working in my
unheated ~30* garage. I took all the rivets inside overnight, but had the
same problem in the morning.
I have never had this happen before. I used a wide-enough variety of
rivets that I don't believe all of them could be defective. I don't
understand how a problem with the gun could cause this issue. That only
leaves operator error, which is possible, but how hard is it to squeeze
the handle on a rivet gun? I've riveted some of these same parts together
before.
Anyone know what's going on here, before I waste another couple hours
and a bunch of rivets? Thanks.
--
David Hillman
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