Closed End Rivets????????????

[Paul Richter]

Hi there, I'm just wondering if anyone has used "closed end rivets". I debating on replacing some of my rivets with these ones. Does anyone have any pros or cons to these?? What are you suggestions???

[Lizbeth]

That's what I used to rebuild my Boler. So far they they have worked very well for several years with no additional sealing, of course it doesn't rain much here.

[Chris McVeigh]

They sound like a great idea

Guess I kind of made my own version when I replaced the the rivets on my Trillium.
I gave the rivet gun two pulls -stopping before the shank snapped - then cut it off flush with the rivet head using a Dremmel tool and a cut off disk. The aluminum is soft and kind of smooshes together.

Here is a picture of my furnace vent rehab and the sealed rivet heads.

[peterh]

Closed-end blind rivets are commonly used in pressurized aircraft construction, but I'm not sure they'd be worth the cost -- Avex closed rivets are expensive -- for our trailers, which generally have plastic rivet covers and don't have to deal with variations in internal/external air pressure that would eventually loosen the rivet mandrel button. Here's what I do: when I use rivets instead of stainless-steel hardware I install standard aluminum blind rivets with rivet covers, use butyl tape between the rivet cover and fiberglass trailer wall, and fill the rivet with hot-melt glue from my glue gun.