[VAL] RE: VAL Digest V2 #106 - Rivet Shaver

[Mitch Hill <fmhill@xxxxxxxxxx>]

>     Thanks for the link to the drawing of the shaver.  Wow........expensive
>for cutter even if it is on the precision side.

This is why I think the rivet shaver is well worth the price:

Several years ago, when I bought my '64 Airstream Ambassador International, 
I planned three projects for it that required buying the rivet shaver from 
Airstreamdreams.com as well as a goodly quantity of rivets and Vulkem and 
replacement teardrop running lights.

This Airstream had been sitting under a number of large maple trees along a 
small river and been left unused and un maintained for about twenty years 
as far as we can tell.  It had an old replacement water heater and still 
the original furnace which in '64 was from some other manufacturer than 
Suburban or Atwood, both of which were rusted out. The refrigerator vent 
was broken and the range hood vent cover was broken and to add insult to 
injury, way back, the previous owner had added a large box shroud over the 
air intake/exhaust unit for the furnace on the outside of the trailer which 
had subsequently been bashed into objects as the trailer had been towed and 
indications were it had been ripped off the trailer several times by the 
number of pulled out holes where it had been attached using steel sheet 
metal screws, all very rusty when I acquired the trailer. The same for an 
adaptor panel supporting the exterior face of the water heater as the "old" 
replacement heater was much smaller than the original.

My experiences in the Air Force in the mid sixties had taught me the skills 
needed to do the sheet metal work and the value of a few essential tools, 
the rivet shaver being one.

Yes it is expensive, however so is time and scared up skin! With the rivet 
shaver, one or two seconds in my 3/8ths Makita battery drill, and a perfect 
contoured rivet identical to all the others with a flawless head, after 
replacing two 2 ft square sections of skin and building a rooftop SOLAR 
array mounting setup, and about a total of five hundred rivets including 
other repair jobs, I think the money I spent at the time, $179 if I 
remember correctly, and to me was worth every cent.

A good source for tools I have found for the sheet metal work is "The Yard" 
in  Wichita Kansas (www.yardstore.com) 800-888-8991

This outfit sells both new and used tools used in the aircraft sheet metal 
trade.

--
Mitch Hill - K1FH
WBCCI 21960
'64 AS Ambassador International