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Rivet Making Tool Suggestions?


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Any have any suggestions for a Rivet Making Tool?

 

I'd prefer the hole punch type for a consistent size and thickness but open to suggestions. 

One I've found on Amazon - I can't tell if it's a punch or if it just 'scores' the plastic to simulate rivets. 

 

Thanks in advance!

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I swear by my Micro Punch Set from MicroMark; very much like the ones Gilbear has shown, it's one of those things that's kinda' expensive for what it is, but its become so useful for so many scratch building projects that I can't imagine living without it now. Once you can easily make tiny circles of any thickness at will, you start finding more use for the ability.

 

I've also devised a low cost method for cutting styrene rod into rivets by creating a stack of razor blades into what I call a Razor Rake (Scroll down Page 7 of Legion Rising to see my tutrial) Just roll the Rake over the rod to score it into equal segments. Simply make a few and vary the thickness of the spacers to make different heights. Excellent for making flat top rivets for placing in pre-drilled holes.

 

For round rivets I completely swear by Titchy Train Group rivets. While they do come with a cost-per-rivet (Versus being able to make as many as you want with a punch set) the ease-of-use and excellent results makes them hard to beat if you want super easy round rivets.

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Thanks! They are expensive for sure. We had a great little kit at the machine shop at the last place I worked. I just looked up the price of that at mcmaster carr and it was over 150
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Thanks I might give this a try.   Curious if you have the rubber version or the silicone mold version.  

 

I'm guessing  harder rubber =  green stuff, miliput and polymer clay

  silicone rubber =  resin and anything that produces an exothermic reaction

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I've got the harder rubber versions. I suspect the silicon ones would be easier to make huge batches, but I can't make too much of a mess with resin sadly.

 

I skipped the suggestion in their video of using a rolling pin, and regret it. It's much easier with one. I use a sculpting tool to push the green stuff/putty down.

 

Also, I just picked up some generic scrapers for removing the excess. They do work well, but you have to kind of saw away the putty on top. Be careful about damaging the rubber!

 

All in all a very handy purchase.

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Cool.  My wife is a ceramicist so we have plenty of scrapers and sculpting tools rollers.   

 

Is it easy to pop out the green stuff rivets?   

Thank you for answering all the questions.  Trying to decide which one to order.   Both Green Stuff and Resin are hard to come by here although I could probably use resin from a boat repair kit.

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Pretty easy to pop out, but not effort free if you follow me.

 

I'm going to try using a resin based epoxy putty in them at some point just to see how that fares. (epo putty, if you want to look into it https://goo.gl/nJJpKh)

The site that sells the moulds also does green stuff at a reasonable rate too, if that helps :p

 

As someone who has both resin and green stuff to hand, I'm glad I got the green stuff ones for the simple fact of it making less mess. I suspect the resin one will have a longer lifespan

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You know, if it's important that the rivets are rounded, you can also use nail beads.

Drill a little divot, add a dot of glue with a needle/cocktail stick, and dab a bead in. They are ridiculously cheap, and come in different sizes.

Okay, the Titchy Train Group stuff is strictly "better" in some ways, but this option is very affordable and produces good-looking rivets without much effort at all. Well, effort in making them anyway! teehee.gif

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