Carrier found in Norfolk yesterday 21/12/2010

[shaun]

Picked up the carrier hull from the blasters, next is to cut out the metal moth and make good. only 200 rivets to do !!!!

[RichardT10829]

I has been a busy bee when it comes to rivetting PM me your mobile and i will send you a cheeky pic....I has a cunning plan that may save you a lot of time !

[Marc van Aalderen]

Originally Posted by RichardT10829

I has been a busy bee when it comes to rivetting PM me your mobile and i will send you a cheeky pic....I has a cunning plan that may save you a lot of time !

Now you've made me curious mate! Come on, show us you're cunning plan!

Cheers,

[Lynn Eades]

I second that!

[shaun]

Originally Posted by RichardT10829

I has been a busy bee when it comes to rivetting PM me your mobile and i will send you a cheeky pic....I has a cunning plan that may save you a lot of time !

Richie, the photo came through fine. an interesting idea. Ben has found a good riveter over his way who thinks a carrier is an easy job compared to the stuff he normally does so im going to get him to smack the 200 in for me.
i do like your thinking though, veery tidy job ( i bet thats got the rest of you guys pondering - its up to Richie to blow the cover on his machining)

[RichardT10829]

I discussed this with Kevin last year but the prep work was labour intensive i have made a jig to go into a lathe so can turn them out by the bucket load now. I failed miserably to form the heads on the rivets on the outside of the hull correctly (truss head) so decided it was a toss up between countersink and rivet frenzy or some machine work.

will get some pics tomorrow and post them up.

[eddy8men]

i was going to use coach bolts to put my radiator armour back on, they look identical to rivets, infact if you were picky you could bash the bolt head to give it the abused rivet look. the big advantage is of course nuts and bolts are easy and can be removed and refitted as many times as you like, there's also the cost to consider as 200 coach bolts will cost you about £50. the down side is you will be able to see the nuts on the inside but don't worry if you're at a show and someone starts to critisize your nuts just knock 'em out, put 'em in the drivers seat with a tin hat on and say it's part of your display

eddy

[RichardT10829]

please excuse my first crude attempt to see if the theory would work.... the idea is i will weld up the inside of my armour where the plates meet...the sections hidden by the angle bar.... then for the frame rails i will drill and plug weld the plates to the frame rails....the fake rivets with some locktite added will be wound on and should give the correct appearence. but majority of strength taken up by the welds... i have done a crude load test with the rivet under tension and i could hang a road wheel from it without it pulling.

i took a rivet out of the original armour and the closest coach bolt (18mm head) was the standard M6 i had tried the M8's but the head was slightly too big and the shank size did not leave enough material on the rivet to thread.

some will probably say LOTS OF WORK THAT ! and they would be correct but... using a pillar drill i drilled and tapped 3 rivets in 15 mins. on a lathe with a jig i can center the rivet easier and will be able to produce them much quicker.

for those who may not brave hot rivetting.....i tried and failed.... this may be an option

sorry if i have hijacked the thread Shaun...i suppose its kinda relevant to where you are with your build.

[kevin powles]

Richard, When i did mine it wasnt a big enough challange and wanted to punish myself further, you have used coach bolts there, try getting a 5/16" truss head rivet and putting a thread on it aswell like i did, then make 100 more of them aswell as drilling and tapping out the 3/8" round head rivet like you have then you will wish you could master the rivet gun.

Its o.k. and looks fine with a bit of bashing over at the end but boy what a boring job it was doing 100.

You will need therapy at the end of it, if i did it again i would gear myself up for riveting, its also the correct way of doing it.

kev.