Cherry Max lubricant

[Alphalpha]

Talked with a colleague of mine who taught with me in a Part 147 A&P program and is a hardware and sheet metal guru about the lubricant used for Cherry Max rivets. The manufacturer uses Cetal Alcohol which is waxy and dry at room temperatures. It melts at 120 F. And is easily purchased anywhere, for those purists.

Here is the tool I made for opening them, in action using an arbor press.

 

[fixnflyguy]

The Cetal Alcohol and paraffin wax are the standard for Boelube paste (best ever drilling/reaming lube) and many other fastener lubes. The Cetal softens the wax and it has no bad side effects of sort. I will remind those concocting their own potion that the wrong choice may result in paint problems similar to that with corrosion X or any other weeping chemical. Almost 50 years of shooting Cherry Loks (Jurassic Cherry Max) and Cherrymax, I have never "lubricated" one. Im not saying its wrong, I've just never seen a reason of instruction to do any additional lube.

 

[RV6_OKLA]

I remember an article from Vans regarding a builders problem with Cherry Max rivet stems breaking before the rivet was properly set and the remedy was to lubricate the rivet. Nice tool for exposing the stem!

 

[CF86301]

I remember an article from Vans regarding a builders problem with Cherry Max rivet stems breaking before the rivet was properly set and the remedy was to lubricate the rivet. Nice tool for exposing the stem!

That jogged my memory. Manual Section 5, p. 05-06. Here is a link to the video. What they don't say is what tool they were using to set the rivets.

 

[Alphalpha]

I should add that this is a half size over Huck rivet because it’s what I had. You can tell because of the extra sleeve that Cherry doesn’t use. The lower block hole is bored to #30 on one side and #28 on the other to work on either size of the-4 range.