Riveting

[Snowtractor]

Remember that carrier rivets or the rivets holding the frame members together on vehicles will be steel , not aluminium, and will be cherry red hot when placed and you have to be quick with the bucking bar and air hammer. An acetylene torch works fine for heating and apparently you can use mild steel rod stock for rivets and it works fine, though I don't know the original composition of the rivets. The chaps in the MVPA article used rod stock cut to proper length. I should add that they used an air hammer with the large round flat hammer head that he took to a machine shop and had the flat surface milled with a half round hole in the rivet head's dimensions. Also, he had several different holes milled into his heavy bucking bar so he could reach all locations.
I found button head bolts that used an allen key on the round end . If you used these and cut the inside bolt off flush with the nut, and then used epoxy putty to fill the allen key hole and sculpt a little round button over the nut end, with paint on it it is impossible to tell whether its a rivet or not.
Sean
Incidentally the rivets were 3/8" or 1/2" on the few I replaced