A Rivet Gun and Rivets are useful because they are mechanical fasteners.

 

They are strong and are used in industrial applications.
One advantage to using them is that you can use a drill to ‘drill them out’ to remove them.

If you are into making projects rivets can be useful holding metal boxes instead of using screws.

There are a few types of rivets, such as the solid rivets and big ones used in ship[ping and industry.
There we are looking at the type of rivets you may find in a home workshop as we see here in Image 1.

 

 

Image 2 shows the Rivet Gun I bought probably 25 years ago. It still works fine.

The Rivet is chosen for the size of the hole, and then inserted into the head of the Rivet Gun as is shown in Image 3.

 

The Rivet head is then inserted into the hole (This could be two plates of thin steel) and while keeping the Rivet Gun firmly pressed against the work surface (Image 4) the handle is pumped over an over again until there is a “snapping” sound.

 

 

 

 

The pin snaps off and what we are left with can be seen in Images 5, 6 and 7.

The join is good. The home handyman may not have rivets because he or she prefers screws or bolts, but Rivets are another way of doing the same job.

All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
9th of April, 2021.