Riveting Nose Caps

[mjm46@bellsouth.net]

Looking for advise on riviting nosecaps. I havn't had very good results with this. Do you use the barrel as the anvil for the rivit? I mean do you install the nose cap with the rivit in position then install the barrel and peen over the rivit with the barrel in position??? What kind of metal are the rivits? How do you keep from splitting the very, very thin wood under the nosecap? (that happened to me the first time I did this and now I'm twice shy!!) I bought some copper rivets with a thin bevelled head that I thought would work. Any who does this please help.

[Dave Dolliver]

I use a home made rivet made from a short length of copper wire that I have formed a c's'k head on in a home made die.  Drill a clearance hole in the wood and metal for the rivet and c's'k both the wood and the metal.  The c's'k in the wood only needs to be as large as the head I formed which is between 5/32 and 1/8 dia.   Install the cap on the stock; drill and c's'k the hole inside and out; install the barrel and form the outer head on the rivet.  The outer head only needs to be slightly larger than the shank.  Most that I have seen that had troubles tried to use too large a rivet and form a head that was much too large.  The rivet is only to keep the cap from sliding off.  The heads only need to be large enough to keep it together while you assemble.  Once it's together there's no load occurring to try to get it apart.

Dave Dolliver

[b bogart]

Same here as Dave does, except I found that a piece of clothes hanger (steel) is very mild and malleable and forms a countersink rivet very nicely! I had trouble with copper wire ( go figure) but the coat hanger was cheap and easy to use for me.

[Birdhunter]

I use copper carpet tacks. Drill a hole for the tack & use a gouge as a drill to make a recess in the wood for the tack head then re-install barrel & peen.Easy peazey lemon squeezy.
Curt

[heinz]

I use 1/8 copper flat head rivets.  The barrel serves as the anvil and I counter sink from both sides.  Here is a link to a picture of one on the contemporary blog.  It was purposely left a bit crude in the style of that particular rifle.  It could be filed down flush
http://contemporarymakers.blogspot.com/2011/05/watauga-rifle-by-heinz-ahlers.html

[Dphariss]

I would use a finish nail of the proper diameter.

Dan

[David Rase]

A lot of originals were rivited on the bottom 2 oblique flats.  I like this method as it adds an element of strength to the sides of the cap.  There is also a little more wood thickness.
DMR

[Larry Luck]

Copper roofing nail with the head appropriately trimmed makes a pretty good rivet.  An eternity's supply comes in a box pretty cheap.
Larry Luck

[smylee grouch]

I used an annealed brass nail on a cast brass cap once, turned out great and was almost invisable.

[Roger Fisher]

This little job is actually easy as described earlier.  If you don't have Chuck Dixon's bldging book maybe you should get one.  It walks you thru the bldg process step by step and also gives a nice pictorial on pinning that nose cap....

[mjm46@bellsouth.net]

Thanks guys I appreciate all the ideas.

[flehto]

It helps if the head on the bbl side is left proud of the wood so it definitely bears on the bbl...file smooth after riveting is complete.....Fred

[mjm46@bellsouth.net]

Thanks Fred, makes sense to me.