G’day, Markus:
I rather doubt that you would find any firm able to supply
silver rivets; HOWEVER! I offer some suggestions below, but I
am not quite sure what the rivets are for, as the word can gave
slightly different meanings and applications. Do you want to use
them as decorative nails perhaps to fasten leather trappings to
the wooden horse? To fasten pieces of leather together? to
fasten pieces of metal/leather together?
If you require a sort of broad-headed nail, the answer is easy
but possibly time consuming; My first suggestion is to get brass
or copper rivets and have them heavily silver plated which
shouldn’t be too costly.
Or you can buy (Rio Grande or Gesswein) or make small discs of
the thickness you want from silver sheet. If you want circular
tops you can stamp them out yourself with a simple die - which I
would be happy to describe if you want. Or perhaps you might
like to cut out small special shapes, like stars, perhaps. If
you choose discs, you can dome them by doming the end of a piece
of steel rod the same diameter as the discs, placing a disc on a
piece of lead, and centering the domed rod over the disc, strike
it with a hammer. Select some small nails of the required
diameter, and cut to desired length. Take the domed discs, drill
a shallow hole in the centre of the concavity of the domes and
silver-solder the nails in place. Polish the domes. When you
come to fit them on the horse, drill a hole in the proper places
a little smaller than the nail diameter, put a little epoxy glue
on the inside of the rivet and tap it home with a plastic or
leather hammer, so as not to spoil the polish on the domes.
There’s a couple of suggestions, but I do suggest that you buy
some good laquer and give the heads several coats. Please email
me direct if you want details of the die, or if I haven’t made
this quite clear. Cheers, –
/\
/ / John Burgess,
/ /
/ //\ @John_Burgess2
/ / \ \
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