I am currently assembling a steam ferry boat model which, as one can gather from the FAQ, doesn't come with "complete" instructions. I have been provided with a brass tube for the ship's smokestack, and brass flat wire to make bands around the stack. The plans tell me to rivet the ends of the flat wire to the stack. Rivets were not included in the kit. I have managed to locate 1/32" X 5/32" copper rivets to accomplish this task, but have no idea how to actually do the riveting. I do have experience with larger rivets (patching holes in my car) but the scale rivets look nothing like the larger ones I am used to. The scale rivets appear to be nothing more than straight copper pins with a round head on one end.

I would appreciate any help in riveting the bands to the tube.
(Mark S. Wheeler)

Riveting with solid rivets is simple supporting the "head" in the proper sized holder. If it is a rounded head (I'm using simplistic terms here, so no smart ass remarks from other metal workers, please.) you need to support it in a rounded recess in a steel block to keep from deforming it. Once this is figured out you either hammer the other end causing it to bulge. Or squeeze it. Vise grips are good for squeezing rivets. Ideally the part of the rivet that sticks through the material to be riveted should be about one and a half times it's diameter. A properly set rivet should measure one and a half diameters round and half a diameter high.
{Woody Vondracek}
Since you want to support the (round) rivet head, you need a round depression. Go to your local hardware store and check out "nail sets" (a punch used to drive a finishing nail's head below the surface of the wood) in the woodworking tools area - these have a hemispherical "dimple" in the end (to keep nails from slipping), and they come in different sizes.
{John O. Kopf}
A tip in a recent Scale Auto Enthusiast suggested using a mechanical pencil to cut tiny disks out of aluminum duct tape (this is actually adhesive backed, heavy gauge aluminum foil - not silver plastic tape - find it at the hardware store). The details were:
  1. sharpen the outside of the pencil barrel with a file. BTW, you can readily find mech. pencils (at an art/drafting/ stationery store) in 0.3, 0.5, 0.7 and 0.9 mm diameters, so you have a choice of rivet sizes.
  2. put the "tape" on a slightly soft surface, like a piece of foam, cloth, etc.
  3. make sure the lead is retracted into the pencil, then punch it through the foil with a slight twisting motion.
  4. apply the "rivet" with the pencil, clicking the lead out a tick to eject the rivet, and as a bonus adding a nice indent in the center.
{Don Schmitz}
Sounds like it might also be useful for punching porthole "lights" as well.
{John O. Kopf}
A clever way to make rivets is to use old fashion (very) teletype tape as a template. Teletype machines were used in the 50's to transmit messages over phone lines. You typed a message at one end and the machine at the other end typed out the message. I believe that beside the military they were primarily used by the news services hence the name wire service. They used a paper tape on a reel to record the message you were typing out and the tape had a series of small round holes down the middle so the tape could be tractor fed. Using this tape as a template and either white or carpenter's yellow glue (depending on whether not the model will get wet) uniformly sized evenly spaced rivets can be made. Tape the teletype tape down and put a small glob of glue over each hole. Before the glue completely dries lift off the TTY tape and you are left with a row of neat rivets. Now comes the hard part -- where do you find TTY tape? I would suggest surplus stores that deal in electronics, somebody at a local IPMS chapter may have a source or possibly a hobby shop that caters to scratch builders of plastic models.

Good luck. If this technique interest you and you find a ready source for TTY tape be sure and post it to the list.
{Pete Law}

To make rivet effects on plastic, thin medal, or card stock I use a dress-makers pattern marker. It is a handled tool with a wheel with spaced teeth on the end. If you look around you can find them with different spacing useful for different scales. All you do is invert the plate, mark the rivet line, and then run the marker along a straight edge. Experiment for the proper pressure. There is a special made hobby tool (in different spacing) made just for this purpose. I have just one.

For places where this is not practical, I use a blunted medal scriber and just push lightly where the rivet should be. When you glue the plate on you can lightly sand the riveting down to desired effect as quite often the rivets were ground down almost to flush or flush.

It's much easier to produce the effect of welding lines on hulls etc. just by gluing on thin strips of "evergreen strip styrene" in the appropriate places and light sand down. When painted it produces a good effect.
{Tom Dean}

For rivets (also bolt heads) I use styrene rod. I drill a hole the size of the rod plus a thousandth of an inch or so, then insert short lengths of plastic rod into the hole, securing with a touch of liquid cement. When dry, I nip off the excess with Xuron (ModelMaster or Tamiya) nippers to an even height, then buff them down with a #1800 or #2400 Micromesh polishing cloth (wet). Use a circular motion, this with round off the heads (close enough for Gov't work). Time consuming, but it works!
{Art Anderson}
You can add to Art's technique by letting the rods all protrude the same length, and then holding a hot soldering iron near them. They will mushroom out from the heat. I wasn't convinced that this would work well but it really does, and makes very consistent rivets.
{Robert}
I have an article someplace in an old SubCommittee Report on using a "pounce-wheel" to make rivets. It's a hand-held device with a wheel at the end that has little metal dimples (they come in different sizes). You run it over thin plastic stock and it generates rivet heads on the other side. I believe that The Floating Drydock carries pounce wheels.
{Tom Dougherty}
You can make a "pounce-wheel" by mounting a watch or clock gear in a slot in the end of a piece of dowel.
{John O. Kopf}
You can make dummy rivets from short lengths of styrene rods.

Do a practice run using various sizes of these rods (available in most hobby shops from Evergreen Plastics) to get the size round bolt head you need, then

  1. Drill a hole at each bolt location.
  2. Glue in a piece of styrene rod
  3. Nip off the styrene rod leaving some protruding (a spacer can be used to make sure every protruding rod is the same size)
  4. Bring a heat source such as a soldering iron or hot-tool near to - but not touching - the rods.
They will all mushroom back making perfect round bolt heads.

I have used this method for simulating round head rivets with great success.
{Bob Santos}

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