I am trying to find a specific tool and I am hoping someone out
there in Orchid land can help.
I really enjoy making rivets that are smooth and flush with the
metal. I like copper rivets on silver. But I seem to remember that I
am supposed to make a bevel on either side of the metal in order to
hold the rivet in better. Can someone tell me what tool I would use
for that purpose? In my class my teacher had some sort of three sided
gizmo that she twisted into the hole, but I don’t know what it was
called.
To make a bevel for a rivet,I use a setting bur, the type used to
make a seat for a round diamond. It could be used in a flex-shaft or
hand held, preferably in a pin vise or handle. Either style of
setting bur is okay, Hart or 90-degree. Get one a little bigger than
your rivet size.
In the jewelry tools use a setting bur to cut the bevel.
Or in industrial supply vendors (mscdirect.com, use-enco.com, mcmaster.com) search for countersinks. For beveling silver by hand
get a countersink with small number of flutes. Silver is soft and a 5
or 6 flute countersink will cut fast even by hand.
To make space for your rivets, first drill your hole, as usual. Take
a ball burr, hart burr or cone burr slightly wider than the rivet…
use your flex shaft and apply the burr gently to the top of the
pre-drilled hole… you will have created the lovely even “hole”
into which you move your metal. Practice will allow you to find the
tool and speed you prefer.
The tool is called a countersink and you can make yourself one very
easily. All that is required is a steel rod a little larger in
diameter than the largest rivet head you anticipate using and a file
or grinder. You just need to file one end of the rod into a nice even
point with some sharp edges - 3, 4, 5, it doesn’t matter how many as
long as its more than 2. The included angle of the point should be
somewhere between 60 and 100 degrees, the greater the angle, the
wider the rivet head will be for a given diameter of rivet. An easy
way to make this may be to start with a masonry nail and grind the
point on with a little grinding wheel in a Dremel or Foredom but you
could also do it by hand on a sharpening stone or doorstep - it would
just take a little longer. Using a Masonry nail will give you an
already hardened tool - if you started with a piece of drill rod
(silver steel) you wold have to harden and temper it later for it to
last any length of time before it needed resharpening. You can make a
little handle for it out of a short piece of garden cane and stick it
on with sealing wax.
The simplest (as in, most readily available) tool for this is just a
larger drill bit-- maybe twice the diameter of the original hole.
Don’t drill down-- just allow the sloped bottom of the bit to flare
the hole, then stop. No need for any specialized tool.
countersinking with either a countersink or a setting bur, as
mentioned, will give you a flush rivet. But in areas where you might
want additional strength…follow the setting bur with a small wheel
bur, plunged straight in. this gives you a nice full head to the
rivet, this is actually a counterbore. Tapered heads can peel if
knocked the right way because the edge is rather thin.