P

phil9diesel

Active Member
I am gathering the neccessary tools for a Vans build. One is particularly ugly to me. The hand rivet dimple tool is large, expensive, and in the used tool market, as ellusive as a white tiger. It seems quite neccessary for professional results, but are there substitutes or used sources? I have a C (cee) rivet die tool for a rivet gun. Besides it's usual role and what I use for it, could it dimple with a 3 riveter? It fits .401 and holds .187 sets. Could some kind of a hand tool and a base perform the same chore? Also, what are builders choices for hand squeezers?
 
Phil,

As far as I know, ya gotta have the hand rivet dimple tool. It really works very well. I can dimple about 20 holes a minute. BTW, for dimpling, put the male die on the bottom, the female on top. That way, the stud on the male die holds the part in position so you don't put a dimple in the wrong place--it has happened. There is a substitute, the DRDT, which some people rave about, but it is about $100 or so more and in my humble opinion, isn't worth the extra $$. Build a table to surround the base and keep skins at the same level as the base. I made my table a little lower & put carpet on it.

Not sure what you mean by "C (cee) rivet die tool for a rivet gun".

Hand squeezers: Ignore Tatco. Go for Cleaveland's Main Squeeze or an Avery tool. You want interchangeable yokes & Tatco's yokes don't interchange with anyone else's. Cleaveland's Main Squeeze is lighter and gives more leverage than Avery's. Bob Avery, however, sets the standard for customer service and you'll want to do business with him out of feeling of obligation because he treats you so well.

I sense you are concerned about tool cost. If this is so, you are going to have to resign yourself to spending over $1,000 for tools or you'll never get your plane built. You can economize by buying tools off Ebay and shopping around, looking at The Yard and Brown as well as Cleaveland and Avery. You'll probably get burned once or twice on Ebay, maybe from just buying the wrong thing. I have yet to see a worthwhile hand squeezer on Ebay. Toolsez on Ebay seems to be a reliable seller & throws a lot of stuff together for a single sale, so you might find a drill with 34 bits, a countersink and some unrelated items, some of which may be useful. And once in awhile you'll find someone here offering to sell his tools.

There's lots of tool advice in the archives.
 
I use the Tatco, and find it to be the best designed unit out there. Lightweight and the ratio of movement is just right. Also because it is a hand squeezer it's yokes are designed lighter than the Mainsqueeze, which can share it's yokes with a pnematic. If you're only building one, probably go with the mainsqueeze. If you do much hand squeezing though, I prefer Tatco.
 
DRDT-2 worth every penny

Having used both the C-frame dimple tool and the DRDT-2 dimpler I would say the DRDT-2 is worth every cent I spent on it. It is MUCH faster, easier and creates the dimples just as well as anything else. You couldn't pay me to go back to the C-frame.
 
Tatco

Don't ignore the Tatco. While it is true that the jaws are custom to the Tatco, When you get one, you won't want any other squeezer, so the problem is moot. The construction quality is excellent.

With any hand squeezer, you will want multiple jaws for different jobs. (No-Hole, Longeron, Deep Reach, etc)

Spend the extra $$ on the DRDT-2. It prevents figure 8 holes. :rolleyes:
 
I (almost) never use the hand squeezer..

I have had great luck working with the pneumatic squeezer only. In fact, I think I've used the hand squeezer (Avery) only a few times to this point. I think you need as many yokes as you can afford; I have a regular yoke (I think 3"), a 4" no-hole, and a longeron yoke and I use them all.

I don't use quick-change pins for the yokes; the guy who rebuilt my squeezer told me that the plating on them flakes off and gets into the squeezer works. It takes only seconds to change the yokes with the bolts.

I highly recommend the DRDT-2 dimpler. I don't even have a C-frame (I couldn't stand the noise) and I like the fact that every dimple comes out identically.

The last tool recommendation I have is to use your electric drill (I have an old Dewalt) exclusively for machine countersinking. My countersinks are 1000% better since I quit using the air drill.

Have fun - enjoy buying all the tools!

dave
 
You must log in or register to reply here.