Tool for rear Handguard rivets?

I'm building a few handguards and am wondering what the proper tool for the small crush rivets that hold the Handguard springs in place is and if there is anything like it available commercially. I have steel rivets and it's proving to be quite the challenge to make them work to say the least.

A mandrel inside the spring may work but finding some HSS round stock and then carbide drill and lathe bits to cut it is a lot of mucking around and costly.

I've tried boring the end of a punch round to hold the rivet head on one side, then did something similar on the other and tried squeezing them in the vise. I also tried smacking them with a hammer, also no good. Any better idea that won't have me ruining handguards at an alarming pace?

I can safely say that we were never supplied bare handguards. They ALWAYS came as a GUARD, HAND assembly, upper. Always as an assembly. We did have loose rivets but they were a general G1 VAOS item, made by a small rivet makers in Aylesbury. I seem to recall that the same brass rivets were used to re-rivet new catches onto the No8 telescope box

Like I always say, while the individual parts were shown in the parts list, you have to remember that the parts list is a list of PARTS and not a list of AVAILABLE parts. I wouldn't mind betting that these brass rivets are available by the bucketful on Ebay under model engineers supplies.

I'm not sure that you'll need anything more than a mild steel anvil and former to rivet brass

I was afraid you would say that Peter!

The brass ones for a Lee-Enfield I don't think would be too large a problem. It's the steel ones for the Ross I'm having troubles with. I've built a stationary mandrel for my vise that will hold the springs fairly snugly in place. I can mark the location of the holes on the springs on it and if I stick some locating dowels out of the mandrel I should even be able to use it to mark the location of the rivet holes in the Handguard. Then in thinking I can slip the rivets in from the outside and using the same holes I've used for the hole marking dowels I should be able to give the rivets a solid whack on the head with a punch I've cupped the tip of in my lathe. After all this work it had better pay off! Probably drastically over-built but if it saves one Handguard it's worth it. The steel rivets aren't particularly hard, just not easy to manage that's all.

Another case where I should have stopped to think first.

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo..._zpsreuo-1.jpg

I'll likely weld a piece of flat bar on the bottom so the vise can hold it at a 90* angle to my body and give it a solid point to bite. Time to drill and mark some holes and try it out.

If this does work I will build another for the No1 MkIII rear handguard and for any other application I may run into.

can you make a tool like the vickers belt repair tool that looks like pliers. this will give you more control and you can still place the bottom jaw on the vise and hit the top jaw to help get the set pressure

Perhaps modify a large pair of vise grips? I could make the tips from a punch or old 3/8 extension maybe and then weld them onto the vise grip. I'll try this first, if it flops that is up next. Thanks!

Not the same handguard , but similar rivets (I think!), tail side showing:
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...6bcb0584-1.jpg


Tubular rivets generally need specialized forming tools for both head and tail. (Actually "semi-tubular" as only the tails are hollow. I used my tubular rivet squeezer sets for WWII aircraft work, mostly control surface buildups. But they also have applications still in furniture/light structure (i.e. tent frames, lawn chairs.) work. Also big ones used for holster snaps, etc.

Not too easy to make properly on your own. Generally best to buy and then modify to fit the particular job.

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo..._zpsd24a-1.jpg
The left squeezer set would be about the right size for handguards, but probably would need the OD turned down to fit the recess in the wood.

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSC01463-1.jpg

The upside is that the fancy pneumatic squeezer isn't required. Can make do with simple hand tools adapted to the forming tools (i.e., the "squeezer sets") for flaring the tail.

Finding non-nickel plated rivets could be "fun"! Plus, they're length specific.

Ah, flying pig........... You didn't say you were working on steel rivets for a Ross!

When rivetting a balance staff, we use two convex punches and a flat one. The two convex punches spread the rivet(two different sized punches). The flat punch flattens it so the hairspring collet lays flat on top of it. Couldn't you do the same thing?
Attachment 52161Attachment 52162

Peter, I should have included that in the original post. I knew the Lee-Enfield ones were brass and should have specified what I was working on.

Gsimmons, I think I may wind up having to do something like that. The problem is that the rivets have a nice round head and solid shank. Trying to hold both tools, the guard and spring plus hit the whole works with a hammer is one tough juggle. Was thinking about building the tool with the *** to put in the hole in the mandrel but that's going to be a bit of a fight as well because it has to be a pretty precise affair, the rivet shank is only .092" diameter. Time for more thinking before moving ahead...

Jmoore, your set may be spot on!

Youir rivet set made me chuckle JM because we had a similar set for rivetting those RIVET, tubular, aircraft on the L1A1 bayonet grips. I don't think ANYONE, ever got it right first or even second time, even with the special mandril seat thing........... We used to call tyhem RIVETS, tubular, awful!

Here's the lovely tool, Peter refers too.

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...52cf3d40-1.jpg

That's the one............. Another of those tools that for some reason, could only be used properly and effectively by one person. Usually someone that was completely cack-handed at everything else!

There was also another similar tool, with a punch, that was invented to aid the tightening up of the cross piece rivets by, well....., knocking seven bells out of them! This tool worked quite well but a better method was to just carefully mig the loose crosspiece to the blade. NOT allowed of course as it would(?) upset the temper of the blade at that point but if you were quick, not too much heat and careful and didn't quench afterwards, it always seemed to be OK

I gave up on trying to build a tool. The steel rivets are simply too hard and have too long an unsupported shank going through the wood portion of the Handguard to work. So, who knows something about rivets that can point me in the right direction? The shank needs to be about 3/32" with a slightly larger rounded head if I can. I need to be able to crush it to pinch the spring to the Handguard without the shank folding sideways into itself and destroying the wood. To be honest in thinking a small pop rivet of some kind may be more practical? Does anyone here have any ideas?

What about using brass - or isn't that original? Seems to me that like most rivetting jobs, yours is a typical three handed job. One to hold the dolly/forming tool, one to hold the work in the correct place/angle and the other to tap the dolly.

Maybe you're whacking the hammer too hard. It's not ships plates you're rivetting! Better to have a zillion small taps than two great thumps. Mind you, without access to a Ross I might be barking up the entirely wrong tree!

Have you tried annealing the rivets, especially if they are old rivets. And perhaps if possible try a mechanical method of forming the rivet. I've used my old heavy RECORD bench vice with a lot of success.

Brass apparently wasn't original, but after the fight with these rivets I'm willing to settle for brass gladly. I thought I was being gentle, maybe not enough. The tool I built held everything fairly snugly in place, the end of the shank was down inside a 7/64" hole with a piece of small hobby sized drill bit (can't remember the size, pretty small!) set into the bottom of the hole as a center pin like the tools you guys have shown. The tip of the shank would barely dent on the pin after 5-6 taps and then the shanks would bend in the middle and gouge the wood.

Time to find some brass ones maybe.

I could try annealing them, haven't done that yet! Good idea!

The rivets have a flat head. This is supposed to be on the inner side of the retaining spring.

The shaft of the rivet mates with a brass washer which is inserted down in each of the holes in the top of the handguard.

These dinky brass rivets and washers are dimensioned thusly:

Rivet
Overall length: .29" (+.02")
Body dia: .08" (-.002")
Head dia: .13" (+.01")
Head thickness: .02" (+.01")

Washer
Thickness: .04"
Diameter: .2"
Hole: .082"


The screws for retaining the end-cap on early front handguards are dimensioned as follows:

Mild steel, (blued)
Overall length: Max-.22", Min-.215"
Shank length: Max-.165", Min-.16"
Head dia.: Max-.197", Min-.195"
Slot width: .024" +/-.002"
Slot depth: .03"
Thread dia.: Max-.096" Min-.095"
Pitch: 56TPI (Enfield Std, RH)

Not all that surprising that brass rivets became the preferred option for attaching the cap to the front handguard.

Maybe you should counter-bore the rivet shaft so that you simply need to use a centre punch to spread the end just sufficient to retain the cap. As you will see on the No4 handguard rivets.

There was very probably a foot-operated load limited press at the factories. We had a similar thing in the old sailmakers shops - later called the textile shop and later still, the equipment repairers section for rivetting and putting those eyelet thinggies (they were always called teddy-bears axxholes among the blokes for some strange reason) for ropes and laces etc etc in canvas and tentage stuff. Do the big workshops still have a semi-trade of 'equipment repairers' now Skippy?

Got it done finally guys. Took a lot of patients and time but it is now figured out. It just became a slow process thats all. I cut my tool in half, and now work the larger spring and smaller spring separately. Drill a tight and straight 3/32 hole in the spring where the rivet goes, line it up in the handguard, mark it, drill through the handguard with another 3/32. Counter sink the rivet head a little with a 1/8 drill from the outside. Put the thing on the tool over a larger hole I drilled in it and punch the rivet through the slightly undersized hole in the spring. It gets tight enough doing this that it would probably stay put alright by itself. When this is done you move it off if the hole in the tool and as Peter says, one million light taps to make the rivet expand. Then I grind the head down enough that it doesn't make contact with the barrel. The end result is a spring set that is on there so good that you can pick an entire Ross full length barreled action up by the handguard. Looks like the originals too. I'm very happy guys. Thanks for all the help.

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo..._zpsybrv-1.jpg

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo..._zpsnmot-1.jpg

My drilling job wasn't really great on this one but with practice it will look much better. I'll try to come up with a foolproof jig for that too.