Quick and simple rivets

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Gil

Active Member
Hi All,

Talc is good as a thickening agent. The addition of paints is a good idea. Instead of using a syringe try using a ball ended embossing tool. They come in assorted sizes giving control of the rivet head size. Just got finished making a mess o'rivet heads. Make sure to dunk the tool to just cover the ball each time wiiping it clean every 6 or so rivets.

Lay a trail of a fairly stiff mixture and work the tool along the path like a welding rod. Gives the effect of a seam weld. Not only rivets but seem welds too..., won't even have to be careful on corners anymore just slap a weldment on it and presto! Done..., well something to that effect...,

Best regards, Gil
 

Gil

Active Member
An addendum to my last,

Steel rule dies are actually fairly low tech and have been used in low end manufacturing for a long time.

Steel rule was the stock material that the cutting blade of the die was made of. It's principle use was for making steel rules which needed to be flexible hence the steel was high carbon steel or "spring steel". A pattern was cut out of plywood with a coping saw. The steel rule was sharpened on one edge and then heated and formed to fit the pattern. Once cool the edge was re-touched and the blade was inserted into the coping sawed slot (the inner part was saved and reinserted to reinforce and stabilize the blade). A backing plate was then added finishing the assembly.

This assembly was then assembled into an air press actuated with an air pressurized cylinder to cut out patterns for leather shoes, paper boxes and other similarly based applications.

That's the nutshell explanation of Steel Rule Dies. So obscure that it's not even on the internet..., until now.

Hudda Thunk Huh! Gil
 

Leif Oh

Member
CharlieC and others,

I tried mixing acrylic colour (tip from Swinger) and quick-drying white glue (thicker basically). Gives you really nice blobs which stay inflated. Will definitely become a part of my repetoire from now on! (Finally found a use for the quick-dry white glue; haven't used it for anything up til now.)

Applied it with fine brush. I tried a small syringe, but the mixture really doesn't suck up that well, and I didn't want to prepare enough of a solution to fill the syringe from the backside.

Mixing with water colour, or water colour pencils tend to make the mixture too diluted, and it doesn't blob as well.

I used my mixture for small knob handles, but it should work fine for big rivets too. They will be even more blob-like than Jim's photo shows (although his blobs are probably just perfect for big rivets, which, after all, are not that bulbuous).

Knobs, blobs, blob-like, and bulbuous, saying it that many times in such a short space make your mouth kind of thicken up...

Leif
 

charliec

Active Member
O.k. - I'm on the same page about steel rule dies now. So how would you
apply this technique to make homemade punches?

I guess just about any high carbon steel would work - hack saw blades
are about 0.8% carbon so might be a candidate.

Regards,

Charlie
 

charliec

Active Member
I'm seriously impressed with how much interest there's been and effort expended in developing solutions to the "rivet" problem.

I hadn't thought of weld lines. Late WW2 German armour was constructed from jointed flat plates which had noticeable weld lines on the joints. The Germans had learned not to worry about external finishing by that stage in the war. Gil's mixture might be the solution to modelling these weld lines.

Now if we can come up with a method to make hexagonal blobs for bolt heads .......

Regards,

Charlie
 

silverw

Member
Hi Charliec

I took a stab at modelling bolt heads. Came out good enough for me.
all these are a 9/16 bolt head, at about 1:12 scale. I just printed a hex pattern on the part where the bolt should be, gave it a poke from the back with a ball point pen, and squirted a little gob of white glue in the depression, to make it stay there.

The best ones are on the fuel pump, and the oil pan.

They wouldn't pass inspection under a magnifying glass, but from a foot away, it's hard to tell.

http://www.imagestation.com/album/?...invite&cmp=EMC-IS_other&creative=album-invite
 

Gil

Active Member
Charlie,

This might work it's untried but it seems conceptually sound. Find the right size hexagonal brass tubing from K&S. Mix up a fairly stiff batch of PVA, Thickener and paint if desired. Use the hex tube to dip bolt heads onto the surface. The method may need to have a PVA surface applied before coming back and adding the texture bump to it (make use of surface tension to insure that the material conforms to the hexagonal shape).

It might work...,

Best regards, Gil
 

Leif Oh

Member
Gil, you always manage to come up with the most incredible sort of high-end, low-tech solutions. Can't imagine what an amazing amount tricks you've stored under your hat...

Bill, meanwhile I'll remember your most sensible approach. Drawing an angular outline, punching lightly from the backside with a suitable round tool, and fill in the depression with glue on the backside. Ingenious, that last part with the glue on the backside.

I do like "quick and dirty", and you've proved that it works, too, haven't you.

Leif
 

charliec

Active Member
Sounds to me like both solutions will work - thank you.

(Slightly off topic) I notice on the bulldozer model that the track adjusters look as if they are functional so you be able to get the tracks to emulate the
correct track sag in the model. Perhaps AFV model designers should be thinking about modelling the track adjusters so they are at least partially functional to allow modellers to get the tracks looking right. It's really noticeable in period images of AFVs how differently various armies set their tracks up. The Russians for instance tended to run with a fair amount of sag in the tracks but the US had them tightened to almost no sag. This, of course, was due to different operating conditions and the differing track technologies used.

Regards,

Charlie
 
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