Hand Squeezer Upgrade (Cleveland Main Squeeze)

Recently, I've been kind of unhappy with my economy squeezer that I bought from the Yard. (I think Avery sells the same squeezer). Nothing wrong with those companies, I am just ready to upgrade.

The squeezer is great for the majority of tasks on the empennage, but it only has one yoke, and I really need a no-hole yoke for some of the tighter-access areas at the end of ribs and such.

So, to buy a no-hole yoke, it looks like I'm going to have to buy a new hand squeezer (insert long back and forth discussion about pneumatic squeezers here. I'm okay with hand-squeezing for the whole airplane, but I want one that can exchange yokes with a pneumatic squeezer if I decide to get one in the future).

So, for no small chunk of change (thanks, savings account!) I got Cleveland's Main Squeeze model 22 and the 4" Thin-Nose Pneu. Yoke. I won't be able to use this yoke for dimpling (still have the economy squeezer for that), but this will be great for squeezing rivets.

The actual squeezer is unbelievably light (a good thing), and the yoke is unbelievably heavy (a good thing). Even before installing the yoke, I can tell this is a much higher quality tool than my "economy" squeezer.

In addition to being easier to squeeze due to the different cam (a three body cam movement as opposed to a rack and pinion type movement), I am most impressed with the yoke.

While I was squeezing rivets with the smaller 3" yoke, sometimes the yoke would "give" a little. I can only describe this as the "c" part of the yoke opening ever so slightly. This had the result of pulling the top of the yoke back just a little, sometimes shifting the shop head a little to one side, or in some cases, sliding the flush set along the manufactured head side during squeezing. Most of the rivets turned out okay, but I no longer have this problem with the new yoke.

Here' a link to a picture of the SRS (shifting rivet syndrome) I used to get with the economy squeezer. http://n999za.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/1-20-10-003-large.jpg

Bravo, Cleveland. I'm a very happy customer.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

N999ZA said:

... (I think Avery sells the same squeezer)...

Click to expand...

Actually, Avery's squeezer does have removable yokes, and the yokes look more like the ones with the Main Squeeze: http://www.averytools.com/p-497-avery-hand-rivet-squeezers.aspx

Any yoke is going to give some. If you measure the gap between flush rivet sets in a closed squeezer, you'll find it's substantially less than the height of the finished rivet squeezed with it, especially -4's.

Hey Mike.

You're absolutely right. Avery does have a nice hand squeezer with interchangeable yokes. I've heard great things about it.

They also sell the economy squeezer I was referring to was here. http://www.averytools.com/pc-871-88-economy-hand-squeezers-with-interchangeable-yokes.aspx It, too, has interchangeable yokes, but not a 4" no-hole yoke, which was the impetus for upgrading.

(Mine came from the Yard. http://www.yardstore.com/browse.cfm/4,3898.html. It looks like they are shipping a better yoke now than when I got mine.)

Of course there will be some small movement of the yoke, but the new 4" yoke's movement is imperceptible. (The old economy yoke could be seen to move with your eye as you squeeze. I would guess the horizontal movement (normal to the circumference of the dies) was at least 1/32", and causing problems in shop heads for me.)

Of course, I can't discount user error, but Cleveland's Main Squeeze has alleviated those for me. (I'm sure Avery's high-end squeezer would fix my problem as well.)

The point of the post is something I keep learning. Spring for the good tools off the bat, it will save you time, money, and frustration.

longranger said:

Actually, Avery's squeezer does have removable yokes, and the yokes look more like the ones with the Main Squeeze: http://www.averytools.com/p-497-avery-hand-rivet-squeezers.aspx

Any yoke is going to give some. If you measure the gap between flush rivet sets in a closed squeezer, you'll find it's substantially less than the height of the finished rivet squeezed with it, especially -4's.

Click to expand...

Hello Longranger, we meet a few days ago on Axel's post. I was just wondering what you think of Superiors new Hydro-pneumatic squeezer?