Rivet and Bolt cropping

How do you cut rivets and bolts to length? I have had considerable success in trimming BA bolts to length using electrical crimp pliers which have a set of threaded holes (Metric thread). Screw your bolt into the hole and use the pliers to shear the bolt to length. This also works well for rivets 1/8" ro 3/16", but not small enough for smaller rivets. How do you cut rivets and bolts to length - especially when you have lots to do and a standard length is not available ?
BobH

I mostly make my own bolts, or design to use a standard length, so not an issue. For shortening rivets I will be making a jig for use on the repetition lathe. The rivets are 3/16" and 1/4" steel, so I doubt the cheaper crimp pliers would cope.

Andrew

I drill a clearance hole through a suitable thickness piece of steel, push the bolt,screw/rivet through, hold in place with a file handle or similar, and then cut off the surplus with a fine tooth saw. A rub over the end with a fine file gets rid of any burrs. If you have a lot to do it would be better to harden the steel so it doesn't get worn down by the saw so easily.

I tend to buy the longer length bolts as they are not much more expensive than short ones and it saves keeping a large stock of different sizes.

Mike Boddy in Australia designed and had made a cutting tool very similar to the crimping pliers but specifically for bolt shortening. I've got one of his prototype sets in the workshop and they work very well. I think they cover BA and metric sizes. He was looking to find someone to import them for him to keep down the cost but I don't know what the situation is at the moment.

John

Arrand used to make a nice rivet cropper but I doubt if a new one could be found now, it has been brought up on this forum before.

Mike

For small rivets (up to 1/16" I do it by eye with a pair of quality wirecutters. The tapered cut gives you a head start on forming them. But don't tell anyone.

Neil

Search for "rivet cutters UK" on google turns up a few likely candidates working on similar principles to the multi-function crimp-shear-stripper pliers in your picture. Expensive to very expensive tho'. Intended for aluminium rivets but some offerings look very hefty for that job.

Flat face wire cutters, as used by piano tuners, work pretty well on small ones. Best to get the double lever semi-parallel action type as these leave a near flat end. Less of a squeeze too. Sorry I'm not sure what the real name is, they look very similar to common nail extraction pinchers.

Be careful not to overload yours. I've had to weld 3 sets back together so far! Also the coloured sleeve bullet et al connection crimper doesn't make a "to specification" crimp and won't cover the full range of wire sizes each sleeve is supposed to take. I'm glad I splashed out on the proper thing. Paid for itself in about 6 months on do-overs for folk who used the basic one and were getting too many failures. Probably around 10 to 20 % were turning up bad so for much of the time the simple tool was doing a decent enough job.

Clive.

I use a cutting disc in a Dremel. Clean and quick, can get into most places or cut before inserting.

This is what I use at work, mainly used for aluminium alloy rivets, occasionally monel and titanium. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Boulderfly-Heavy-Duty-Rivet-Cutter/dp/B008ZGNL2A Works fine for aluminium but it's a bit of a struggle with harder materials at the larger sizes

Edited By ChrisB on 07/04/2017 09:09:23

Piercing saw.

regards Martin

For small BA screws I use a home-made lantern chuck.

Russell.

For small rivets, I use two small scraps of steel the thickness of the length of rivet required. Put the two bits of steel in the vice side by side, and drill a hole between the two(half in each), put the rivet in the hole, making sure it's a tight fit. A cut with a sharp cold chisel, done, if you have a lot to do, drill a lot of holes, you can do those with one whack.

Ian S C