Peening Rivets w/ Hammer

Hey AS Gang, I was Hoping some of you could give me a tip or two. How many of you have ever peened over your rivets with a hammer when repairing or building your own chain? I am piecing together a few "stump" chains and had no problems pushing the rivets out w/ the hammer but am having a few issues w/ peening them over to get the loop finished up.

Thanks so much.
-Chad

rngrchad said:

Hey AS Gang, I was Hoping some of you could give me a tip or two. How many of you have ever peened over your rivets with a hammer when repairing or building your own chain? I am piecing together a few "stump" chains and had no problems pushing the rivets out w/ the hammer but am having a few issues w/ peening them over to get the loop finished up.

Thanks so much.
-Chad

Click to expand...

trial and error to start with 'till you get the hang - a couple of knocks, check to see they're still rotating ok, couple more knocks etc. until you reckon you have enough mushrooming. Then run it and keep checking the rivets. Once you've done a few chains you'll know

harrygrey382 said:

trial and error to start with 'till you get the hang - a couple of knocks, check to see they're still rotating ok, couple more knocks etc. until you reckon you have enough mushrooming. Then run it and keep checking the rivets. Once you've done a few chains you'll know

Click to expand...

Thanks HarryGrey. I took a punch and drilled a small indentation into the end of it so the punch would "set" on the rivet and allow the rivet to mushroom out a bit. I ended up getting my chain finished. Seemed to work pretty well. Looks like I got just enough mushroom out of the rivet and the link has free-movement. I'm afraid of trying to mushroom that rivet any further for the sake of it tightening up on me.

I took some pictures of how I did it incase it can give anyone ideas. I think I need to create a wider more gradual indentation on the punch so it will mushroom to the sides more gradually...?

A little more spread on the edges.

Just a suggestion, visually check the outside edge of your punch
isn't making contact with the link surface. If it does contact when
striking the rivet, the punch might start micro fractures in the link.

This make sense ??

lfnh said:

A little more spread on the edges.

Just a suggestion, visually check the outside edge of your punch
isn't making contact with the link surface. If it does contact when
striking the rivet, the punch might start micro fractures in the link.

This make sense ??

Click to expand...

Makes perfect sense. No the punch is not contacting the link. However I tried to mushroom them a bit more but the link seems to be getting tighter. I attempted to pry the links apart to see how well they are riveted on and was unable to even budge the sideplates. I'm thinking there must be enough mushroom on there.....hmm...If I could just find a hand driven rivet tool that I can just pound with a hammer I would be set.

rngrchad said:

Makes perfect sense. No the punch is not contacting the link. However I tried to mushroom them a bit more but the link seems to be getting tighter. I attempted to pry the links apart to see how well they are riveted on and was unable to even budge the sideplates. I'm thinking there must be enough mushroom on there.....hmm...If I could just find a hand driven rivet tool that I can just pound with a hammer I would be set.

Click to expand...

I reckon they don't too bad - if you think it's tightening after more peening, then that's enough. Just keep checking after running it for a while . Your punch set up looks good - I just settle for a ball peen hammer at tho mo. I may think about making a punch though, got some old files that could find their way into the forge!

HarryGrey, I tried just using the ball-peen end of the hammer but wasn't able to drive the rivet heads hard enough to get a decent amount of peen-over on them. I also was afraid I might miss the rivet head and smash the links in with just the hammer thus the reasoning for my punch setup. Thanks for your help bro.

You might try cutting a round trough across the punch end rather than a dimple in the middle. With the above punch you can rotate slightly between hammer strikes to work down the edges of the rivet. Avoid pounding on the center of the rivet because that can cause the middle of the rivet to swell up and bind in the hole of the drive link. The Granberg vise-grip type tool does a good job of breaking and mending chains.

rngrchad-

(At the risk of eating boot leather), I'd be happy to try and post some pics of hammer peening. Might also be able to post pics of shop spun rivet.

I need to get the late dinner out of the way first. check back around 9, if you can.

rivet peening photos

Finally put some photos of using "repair links" (also called "repair straps") used to connect the ends of a loop of chain. The chain in the photos is Oregon 72 LGX (3/8 x 0.050).

A large nailset punch can be used to initially expand the rivet shanks. The one I had (now lost) had a dimple that was slightly larger than the rivet's shank face. Good hardware store should have something close.

Hope these photos help. Tried to shrink the sizes to help speed things up for dialup members (like me).

The original question was posted by rngrchad here:

http://www.arboristsite.com/showthread.php?t=90793&highlight=peening+rivets

There are a couple of previous posts by oldsaw and MottoBoyMatt on this topic which are really worth a read:

http://www.arboristsite.com/showthread.php?t=68287&highlight=peening+rivets

http://www.arboristsite.com/showthread.php?t=25600&highlight=peening+rivets










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Thanks LFNH! It definently shows that you get much better peenover on your rivet heads than I did. That is a trailer hitch-ball right?

Here's your pics directly posted to the thread:







Pics courtesy LFNH.

Yes, the ball hitch in photos is 2.25".

Thanks for catching the mistake.

PM sent

first five photos:

corrected riveting photos