"Makers Plates" rivets?

I have several items where the makers plate / specification are coming adrift. These plates are held on by some kind of rivet.

I assume these rivets are made to dead length and after they are inserted into a hole of a critical depth, one gives them a good tap to expand them.

I am not sure about this as it means the depth of the holes and plate thickness are critical. If hole is too deep then the rivet cannot expand radially and if too shallow then the plate will be loose.

So how do they work and can they be purchased? They are a bit on the small side to turn. It would mean getting my watchmakers lathe sorted!

Andrew.

Andrew,

These are often 'Hammer-Drive" rivets [or some such] and they are hard steel, with a multi-start 'slow' thread.

Readily available, but the very devil to remove if they were fitted properly in the first place !!

MichaelG.

In a recent post, I mentioned hammer drive rivets. AFAIK, they can be purchased on-line. They are steel r/h rivets ad have a helix on their shank. They can be driven into a correctly sized blind hole. Might suit your need.

We used to use "Hammertite" screws/rivets to affix makers names to our mould tools. A rivet with a sort of spiral thread form that twisted in the hole as it was tapped in.

Drive Rivet

John

Have you tried reseating the rivets using a punch with suitably shaped hollow head. Never done it myself but I recall the idea being mentioned during tea break many years ago. Don't remember the topic coming up again so I assume it worked. Either the by the rivet going in a bit deeper or by the head deforming to take up the slack.

Clive

If it is a new installation you could always cheat and use slotless round head screws (threaded rivets) like these **LINK** into a tapped hole.

Brian

Superglue

>ducks<

Hello,

Thanks everyone for enlightening me. I do seem to remember this type of "rivet" from the distant past. It took everyone here, to get that surfacing in the brain!

I have no idea what size the originals were, so some judicious measuring is needed! Thanks for the offer Dallas, I will get back to you once I have measured up the holes!

Super gluing sounds a good way to cheat, but the rivets have disappeared long ago before I got the items, so no go with that idea.

Probably be accused of being finicky, but a makers plate hanging on one fixing does annoy me! I suppose I have more than enough to do without fiddling about with such things. But it would remove a constant niggle!

Thanks everyone for being so helpful!

Andrew.

On my little Pultra I used copper rivets and Loctite. I sheared off the old rivets with a cold chisel. Fortunately the holes were much deeper than they needed to be so I could drive the old shaft deeper in, leaving 1/8" to hold the new rivet.

HTH,

Rod

Are they not designed to have nuts fitted on the 'hidden' face, so drilled right through?

I had a nasty suspicion that I might have some of these fixings somewhere. Not realising what they were, a quick search in the odds and sods cupboard revealed two packets of said fixings. Job now done, very worrying that I had to ask here, when the solution was in the damn cupboard.

I claim a very senior moment, the alternative is ......... now what was I going to say? Forgotten already!

Thanks everyone,

Andrew,

Just FYI these fasteners are called type U metallic drive screws in north America. Link below to dimensions of ANSI std ones in case anyone is still awake and interested.

https://www.hpaulin.com/media/wysiwyg/Round_Head_Type_U_Metallic_Screws.pdf