The Complete Handbook of Rivet Guns

Chapter 1: Understanding Rivet Guns

A rivet gun is a tool for making permanent mechanical joints. Unlike screws or bolts, which can be removed, a properly installed rivet creates a joint that is meant to last the life of the product. To understand the tool, you must first understand the fastener. A rivet is a simple, unthreaded cylindrical shaft with a manufactured head on one end. The process of riveting involves placing the rivet into a predrilled hole through the materials to be joined, and then deforming the plain end of the shaft to create a second head. This second head, called the shop head or upset head, clamps the materials together. The rivet gun is simply the specialized tool designed to perform this deformation with speed, control, and repeatable force.

This is not an abstract definition; it is the core principle that guides every design decision in a rivet gun and every technique you will use. There are two primary families of riveting: impact riveting and squeeze riveting. The tool we call a rivet gun is most often an impact tool, using the kinetic energy of a moving piston to generate a series of rapid blows. A bucking bar, held against the rivet tail, provides the opposing force that causes the metal to flow and form the shop head. The other family, the squeeze riveter, applies a single, slow, high-pressure squeeze. While there are powered squeezers, this handbook focuses primarily on the impact rivet gun, the most common and