Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

I have been considering useing rivets for attaching the molding to the ouside of my trailer, but all I can find around town are pop rivets. Someone told me that I should use marine rivets but I havent had any luck locateing them. Would the pop rivets work or would I be better off useing screws???

any thoughts


Tom

rivets leak in most cases unless they are "bucked" rivets and have sealer around them in the hole...we used pop rivets to put the trim on the hatch...BUT... we used an insert type trim, a flat headed (pop)rivet and inserted them from the bottom up into the channel for the insert, sealer in the holes and weatherstripping underneath for the hatch seal....
madjack

You should also put a dab of sealant on the heads. If used in a vertical application, water may collect in the head where the pin came out.

There is a pop rivet called a blind rivet - no opening in the end. Hanson rivets has them. Here's a pic from there web site.

Thanks for the advice. I'll look into the blind rivets but if screws turn out to be a more reliable way go, I'll just take a pass on riveting

Tom

FYI: all pop rivets are called blind rivets. They are "blind" because you cannot access (or see) the back of the piece being worked on.

When you can't access the rear of the workpiece you can't use a standard rivet because you can't get the bucking bar behind the rivet.

When you order, ask for the closed end rivets.

Thanks for the clarification. We have a commercial fastener store here in town. If they don’t have them I may simply go ahead with aluminium or stainless steel screws.

Yay! I found the closed end rivets I wanted at eugene fasteners. They sell them individually for 10 cents each or a box of 500 for $45. I bought a few to play with to get a better idea what Id be working with. Thanks for the help everyone.

Tom


Quote O the day,

To little is bad, and to much is never enough, unless of course its just about right.

You can dab a little RTV sealant on them before inserting into the hole, then wile clean after they are tight. That puts a sealer around the head to make sure there is no leak.

i just used a dab of hot glue in each ...no more worries.

I would look at this thread: http://www.tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?t=22175&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0 and talk to Deserthawk. He has done the most with rivets that I can remember.