Tip: Alternative Dimpling Technique

[cytoxin]

i did this a while back and it does work great. but you better drive straight. i found the pop rivet dimple to work as rick said. however once you shoot a rivet in there witha soild flush set they look the same to me. oh, i only used one bit to drill my parts.

[johnp]

i've done this as well. works a treat, as the brits would say. i only had to drill the hole in the buckingbar, 'cuz when i bought my used tools there was already a set with a hole in it (i probably wouldn't have thought to do this if there wasn't.) i only used one bit for the hole -- in the drillpress with slow speed and lot's of liquid boelube.

if you don't want to sacrifice a real rivet set, the "chisels" from a harbor freight $7 air-hammer are .406 (i think that's the right size -- anyway, they fit in a rivet gun), so you can sacrifice one of those.

[WSBuilder]

I'm embarrassed to admit that I dimpled my entire HS and VS skins using this method back in '84, but it worked great w/o damage.
I've made several set holders of various lengths for my 3X gun using 1/2" steel rod, available at hardware stores. I grind the .4 diameter on the bench grinder and clean up on the belt sander. The tip is easy to drill for the rivet set. Since it's not heat treated it wouldn't do for thousands of rivets, but it works fine for those special occassions.