4 Rivet Guns and 6 Flush Sets

I tried out four rivet guns and half a dozen flush rivet sets while I was recovering from scrapping my horizontal stabilizer.

Here are the rivet guns. We'll number them 1 to 4, left to right. I'm using a Harbor Freight air pressure regulator and the psi that I mention is static. When there's heavy use, the pressure drops. I don't use a flow restrictor at the guns.



Gun #1 is covered with Pro-Seal from riveting and Pro-Sealing the center wing assembly of a production airplane, as we turned it into a wet wing aircraft. I don't know who made the gun, but I bought it around 1986. It's a 3X and is nicely balanced. It has a decent but not exceptional trigger. Setting AN426AD3-3.5 rivets, it's happy on about 15 psi. Unfortunately I used 30 when I over-set the rivets on the skin of the horizontal stabilizer.

Gun #2 was borrowed from a friend. It's not balanced as well as gun #1, but otherwise performs about the same. I used it to set a few of those rivets at 30 psi, and that was too much. It gave much the same results on the stabilizer as gun #1. It's made by ATS and set the large rivets in the 46 foot long wings of a Xenos motorglider. It's a 3X and he would have been better off with a bigger gun for that.

Gun #3 was borrowed from another friend. It was used to build an RV-8. It's a 2X and handles nicely. It's relatively light. I don't know who made it, but there's one that looks like it in the current Aircraft Spruce catalog.

Gun #4 is a brand new Sioux 3X gun. It's got a very nice trigger and surprisingly poor ergonomics for that much money. It seems to prefer about 20 psi, maybe a small bit lower than that. 15 psi is clearly too light.

Here are the rivet sets. We'll put letters on them, "a" through "f," left to right.



Flush set "a" has a small head. I used this one to drive all the skin rivets on the stabilizer. The small size, combined with the high pressure I used, put a concavity on the skin along the lines of rivets, and that led to me scrapping it. Brown Tools calls something akin to this one a "suicide" set. They didn't sell this to me. I borrowed it. 'Nuf said.

Flush set "b" is from Cleaveland and I bought it earlier this year. It only works in the Sioux gun. It simply won't set an AN426AD3-3.5 rivet in any of the other guns. It doesn't matter the pressure.

Sets "c" and "d" appear to be identical. One is from Avery and the other is from Brown, both recently. They work nicely in guns #1, #2 and #4, the Sioux gun. They don't work at all in gun #3.

Set "e" is an old guarded flush set I bought somewhere back in 1986. The guard is off it for this test. Compared to the others, it's got a fairly flat face and smoothly rounded edges. The guard is just a grommet. The set only works in gun #4, the Sioux, and it's sweet there. Very nice.

Swivel set "f" is on loan from the RV-8 builder. It's good in all the guns except the Sioux. It'll work with that gun but for some reason it seems to need a third hand on that gun. Due to that awkwardness, I'll be giving it back shortly. It might have come from Aircraft Spruce but I'm not sure.

Bottom line is that the Sioux gun is acceptable once you get used to it. It'll fit a hand that's smaller than mine. I wear size large gloves and the gun's handle is small for me. It's a little heavier, with slightly worse balance than some of the others, but its nice trigger and its ability to accept a wide range of rivet sets make up for that.

I'll use the flush set "e" without its guard if I can, and one of the ones from Avery, Brown or Cleaveland otherwise.

Thanks to Dave Dooley, Jim Sherry, Rod Woodard and Bill Hug for help, the loan of tools, and advice.

Dave

As an aspiring builder I've got a lot of my tools, but haven't got a rivet gun. I just recently got the 1" flush set from Cleaveland. You mention certain sets not working in a particular gun. Why is this so? How does it work in one, but not the other? I didn't know this was an issue needing to match sets to guns.

I have no idea why some rivet sets only work in some guns.

Dave

By "not working" are you saying that the set is not capable of driving the rivet? I don't see how that would be possible, but I'm a newbie so just looking to learn and make educated decisions.

Regardless of the specifics, when I said it didn't work, what I meant was that the rivet would not set. I could pound away at any pressure I chose, and the rivet would look and act like it was a brand new rivet. In some case there's no force getting to the flush set. In other cases, it appears as if the flush set and the gun are working well (I tried a few hits on a piece of wood) but it would not set the rivet.

With a combination that worked, that same rivet in that same hole would drive as it was supposed to. When that happened, it was fun.

Incidentally, the reason I used flush set "a" on my stabilizer was because then I only had "a," "b," and "e" and the other two didn't work. After I scrapped the stabilizer I bought the "c" and "d" sets, borrowed "f," and set about evaluating the various combinations. I figured that with people helping me and by spending some money, pretty soon I'd get something that worked.

Not mentioned above was that I also had to learn a bit and practice with my dimple equipment. Fortunately there, I already had Cleaveland's spring-back dies. It was only a matter of improving my use of them. The biggest positive improvement came when I increased the pressure or tightness of the setting in the squeezer, and hit the C frame with my two pound ball peen hammer instead of my dead-blow hammer.

Dave
RV-3B

Awesome! It sounds like the Sioux gun is a nice unit. This is the decision I am currently evaluating as my next tool on the list is a rivet gun. I wonder if the #3 gun has problems due to the length of the "snout" of the gun? It looks to be the oddball in that regard. Anyone else know why a given set would/wouldn't work in a particular gun. In my short experience I was under the impression all .401 shank sets would work with all rivet guns that accept this diameter.

Gun suffix

What does the 2X and 3X mean/imply?
Johan

It's how the capacity or the power of the guns are rated. The bigger the number, the larger the rivet it'll set.

A lot of people are happy with a 2X, especially for the 3/32" rivets. And a lot of people are happy with the 3X for the 3/32" and the 1/8" rivets. In my photo of the guns, gun #3 is a 2X and the rest are 3X. Gun #3 build a beautiful RV-8.

Just to confuse things, the 3/32" rivet is a 3 and the 1/8" rivet is a 4. The rivet diameter is measured by 32nds. As far as I know this has nothing to do with the rivet gun rating.

Dave

Lower pressure, All Smiles, but no Smilies!

OK, i have the Avery 3x gun (bought new) and did some experimenting today. Here are my conclusions (confirming recommendations from posters here) My smilies were not on the rivet head, but on the base material.

1. Pressure is very important, 50-65 psi is a good range for -4 rivets
2. heavier sets take more air pressure: it took 5 more psi for the long offset than the short straight set.
3. Heaver, stiffer structure takes more pressure, it took +5 psi (short set) to actually set the rivet.
4. Light weight bucking bar also requires higher pressure than a heavy one.
5. Tape, masking and duct both provide additional clearance and cushioning, also they protect the head and it looks nicer after setting.
6. i was always holding my gun with the heel in my palm, and it really helps keep direct line of action should something bounce, but it won't bounce with the proper pressure ( low)

I still have a nagging feeling that the dimensions of the set are critical and will discuss this with Avery to get their opinion. It seems the depth, shape and clearance to the parent material are very important. I will post if modifications to provide some additional relief works.

Oh - - yes the "snap-socs" , i will definitely be getting some of these things.

Thanks again for all the considerate posts.

Update 4-23-17 - still learning with the gun. Learned that in stiff structures to up the pressure, and don't hold the bucking bar tight or it will clinch. Let the rivet move to the bucking bar.

Tools and Equipment

I am new to all of this and am planning on purchasing the necessary tools and equipment that I need to start this adventure. Could someone point me in the right direction as far as a list and where to get this stuff at some good prices?

Thanks
JD