rivets
Carrier is looking good Jordan, keep up the good work. I have just pulled mine into the garage and will dig the extra rad covers out of it today or tommorrow.
Maurice
On the cooker brackets I have had, the strap loops were spotwelded to the tray.
I have just installed a lot of the rivets on my carrier. The majority of the rivets go from the inside of the hull and are peened on the outside where they fill the countersunkk holes.
I bought 3/8 rivets which were 1-1/4 long. I was working alone so I had to devise a method of holding the rivet in place while peening over the other side. I welded a bar about 1 foot long onto the head of a hydraulic bottle jack. On the end of this bar I had dished the shape of the rivet head so I wouldn't de-form them in the process. I used some short beams to get the bottle jack into the appropriate place and would jack the rivet securely into place. I then would alternately heat the rivet with a torch, and peen it with an airchisel. I had modified a chisel bit into the shallow dish shape of the rivets which is on the origional outer armour.
Once I had everything it took about 5 minutes a rivet. I sure like the look a lot better than either carriage bolts or hex head bolts. Lots of good exersize too, climbing in and out of the carrier 100 times.
It's winter here now (going to -25C the next couple of nights) so I will have to wait until next spring to complete the rivets. Unfortunately, I rivetted on the back armour with the rivets pointing out. I later saw Derk Derin's and the rivets went the opposite way on the outer edges of the back armour, so I will have to cut these out and re-do them.
Now some of you with the real rivetters and bucking bars may tell me that this isn't the proper way to do them, but with my limited resources this method ends up loking pretty good. For those who are going to try this method, expect to waste your first 10 or twenty rivets getting them to look just right.
I probably should have done my powertrain first and then installed the armour, but I had to have it looking like a carrier. Also, this way, I can also sandblast the hull without worrying about damaging or contaminating the maechanical components.
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