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Which air hydraulic riveter should I use?

bertschb

bertschb

Well Known Member
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New builder here with a new builder question...

I was at Harbor Freight recently looking at air hydraulic riveting tools. They sell both a 1/4" and 3/16" model.

They only had the 1/4" model in stock so I grabbed that one. Is this the correct model to use while building an RV-14?
 

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That is for using with pulled rivets, like the RV 12 uses.

You may have a few pulled rivets in the 14, but I believe it is mostly driven rivets.

You are going to need a rivet gun and bucking bars, and/or a rivet squeezer. The squeezer will not reach the larger skin areas, but is nice for a lot of the inner structure work.

Google is your friend----watch some videos of driving and squeezing rivets.

Cleveland, and other tool companies have what you will need.
 
Mike S said:
That is for using with pulled rivets, like the RV 12 uses.

You may have a few pulled rivets in the 14, but I believe it is mostly driven rivets.

You are going to need a rivet gun and bucking bars, and/or a rivet squeezer. The squeezer will not reach the larger skin areas, but is nice for a lot of the inner structure work.

Google is your friend----watch some videos of driving and squeezing rivets.

Cleveland, and other tool companies have what you will need.
Click to expand...

I guess I should have been more clear. Not only have I watched literally hundreds of hours of YouTube videos in preparation for my build but I've also already purchased the Cleaveland tool kit for my -14 including both the pneumatic squeezer and "Main Squeeze" hand squeezer. I've also built the Vans practice toolbox.

I realize the -14 doesn't use many pulled rivets but it does use some and I wanted to use an air hydraulic rivet gun - hence my question.

Just curious which size is more appropriate for a -14 build - 3/16" or 1/4".
 
Chicago pneumatic

Have the Cleveland rivet gun which I used on my 7 build 13 years ago. It has developed some hesitation so bought a used Chicago P. Night and day. Wish I would have had that one to start with.
 
bertschb said:
I guess I should have been more clear. Not only have I watched literally hundreds of hours of YouTube videos in preparation for my build but I've also already purchased the Cleaveland tool kit for my -14 including both the pneumatic squeezer and "Main Squeeze" hand squeezer. I've also built the Vans practice toolbox.

I realize the -14 doesn't use many pulled rivets but it does use some and I wanted to use an air hydraulic rivet gun - hence my question.

Just curious which size is more appropriate for a -14 build - 3/16" or 1/4".
Click to expand...

Neither. All blind rivets will be mostly 1/8" and a few 3/32. Unsure if alternate attachments are included in that package and you don't want to use a tip larger than the mandrel. Frankly you don't need that. They are just not that hard to squeeze by hand and may need a hand version to get in tight quarters anyways. Save your $. You'll need it come engine time if Lyc keeps raising the price every week.
 
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Yes, that will work, I have a cheap one from amazon, looks like the difference is the inlet connection, so just be sure you have that piece right. And yes it's very useful and makes pulling rivets very easy and fast.
 
I have a rivet puller similar to that. It works for 95% of the pulled rivets. There were a few where I had to use a hand squeezer due to space issues ie the pneumatic one is a bit big. No regrets.
 
Thanks for the feedback guys. It looks like the 1/4" model I bought doesn't have an attachment for 3/32" rivets so I'm going to take it back and swap it for the 3/16" model which comes with the 3/32" attachment. Hopefully they will have the 3/16" model when I go back there.
 
Pop riveter

bertschb said:
Thanks for the feedback guys. It looks like the 1/4" model I bought doesn't have an attachment for 3/32" rivets so I'm going to take it back and swap it for the 3/16" model which comes with the 3/32" attachment. Hopefully they will have the 3/16" model when I go back there.
Click to expand...

So few pop rivets I would opt for a manual. Mine has the nose ground down for tight quarters.
If you really want a good pop rivet tool, buy this one.
 
I bought an air riveter and used it about 5 times. Then I used the hand puller and it was all I used after that.
 
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