Riveting Levers?

[Jewish Leprechaun]

I'm trying to put some levers together for my concertina. What does everybody use to rivet levers? What size (thickness) are they? And most important where can I get the rivets and a riveting tool for them?

 

Thanks,

Lep

[McIsog]

Lep,

 

Last time I checked the local instrument tool supply they were out of stock of concertina lever crimpers and rivets. ;-)

 

So here is what I did to fix the broken lever on a Jonesy I have: Bought some bronze flat guage strips from a local artists supply; Cut them to length spec; measured, marked and drilled them where the rivet should go; used a small piece of hard bronze wire; held the wire in a vice while I hammered one end flat; removed the wire from the vice and sanded it smooth; cut the rivet to be to length; sanded again; assembled the mess; set it up on a small anvil and hammered the open end of the rivet.

 

Hammer too hard and the lever won't lever. I bought the hammer and anvil at the same artist supply I got the bronze parts from.

 

The drill I used was just a Dremel tool set up in a small $40 Dremel tool drill press/jig (nb - 20 yeara old price).

 

Have fun, go slow, budget enough material for a practice rivet kit or 2, it was easy!

 

Dan

 

I'm trying to put some levers together for my concertina. What does everybody use to rivet levers? What size (thickness) are they? And most important where can I get the rivets and a riveting tool for them?

 

Thanks,

Lep

[Henrik Müller]

I'm trying to put some levers together for my concertina. What does everybody use to rivet levers? What size (thickness) are they? And most important where can I get the rivets and a riveting tool for them?

 

Thanks,

Lep

I never thought about it - I looked at old designs and did it like this:

close-up of rivet (photo #6) - and the tool (photo #2)

 

The "rivets" are simply small pieces of 1.5 mm brass wire. With a flat lever

post, the diameter of the rivet should probably be a little more, say 2 mm.

 

/Henrik

[Jon C.]

I'm trying to put some levers together for my concertina. What does everybody use to rivet levers? What size (thickness) are they? And most important where can I get the rivets and a riveting tool for them?

 

Thanks,

Lep

There are a few suppliers of small brass flat head rivets online, but they are mostly in the UK, I am still trying to order some myself. The ones that I saw were 1/6" dia. If you are going to go with the 1/4" round stock post, you can get some small brassing rod at the local weld shop, or the K&S supplier at the hardware store.

Good luck!

Jon

[Jewish Leprechaun]

Thanks for the tips. I was going about the whole thing the wrong way. Though, I've got an idea of what I need to do now... I think.

[Henrik Müller]

I just couldn't resist the temptation: rivet away here !

 

And to really get off the thread: you can click on any rivet and get to it's specs,

where you can even manipulate the rivet in 3D space

 

What I would call multimedia overkill, I could think of more interesting applications

 

/Henrik