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Riveting
for Scale Models - Part 1: Tools by Rato Marczak
Well, there has been a
lot of ado lately about riveting. Riveting approaches are in the arsenal
of scratchbuilders´ techniques for years. For some reason, the
subject reappeared again. It is up to you whether rivet lines must
be reproduced in your model or not. It is not difficult, but boring...
very boring. However, if correctly accomplished, rivets will add a
lot to the final aspect of an aircraft model. I´ve been
receiving many e-mails inquiring where to buy this or that tool. There
are a number of commercial tools available, but you don´t have
to pay an arm for this sort of thing. That´s what I´ll
try to show in this article. The text is focused on the tools. Another
article focusing on the techniques will be addressed in the future.
2.) RECESSED
RIVETS This is obviously
the easiest type of riveting technique. In actual aircraft, there´s
no such type of rivets: they are of the buttonhead (raised, round)
type (like those in a Grumman F4F or a Douglas SBD) or flushed type
(Vought F4U, North American P-51...). Countersunk rivets are good
representations of the later type. Many modelers use this technique
regardless the rivet type, simply because it is easier to produce
a small hole on the plastic surface than the contrary. Whatever
is the case, the idea here is to produce an illusion of the real rivets.
After a judicious wash, they will be highlighted, leaving the desired
impression. In the case of fasteners and large screws, the recessed
type is the obvious choice in most cases. There are a number
of tools that can be used to produce recessed rivets. Depending on
the area of the model, you have to make one by one. In other cases,
you can speed the process up by making entire lines of rivets at once.
2.1) Making rivets one by one The picture below
shows some of the tools that I generally use to produce individual
rivets and fasteners.  Some riveting tools. Here´s a short description of each one: A1. Simply a compass needle mounded in a hobby knife handle. Pretty much like the tool used to rescribe your models. You don´t need to use a compass needle, but its metal has the advantage of being heat treated, and so it will last long enough. Of course, you can sharpen its end with an abrasive stone whenever necessary. A2. This is a home-made riveter. I found some of these conical heads some time ago. They are made in high grade steel and its point seems to last forever. I simply mounted in an old handle. A3. This
my home-made embosser. I use it primarily for embossing
plastic and brass sheets, but it can be used to produce nicely
countersunk "dots".
And here´s
our home-made riveter/embosser. A5. This is the commercial Hasegawa rivet embosser, recently reviewed here. A6. This
is something I discovered by accident. Mechanical ink pens are excellent
rivet embossers. It is just a matter of pressing it on the plastic
surface, and it will leave a nicely done circular depression. Their
ends are made of high strength alloy, because it must resist to the
abrasion against drafting papers. Another good news: a typical set
of these pens will range from 0.3 to 2.0 mm, so you are plenty of
options to fit your needs. Ok, now that the
tools are introduced, let´s see how they perform on a piece
of soft styrene:  Results of the individual riveting test.
Although there are modelers crazy
enough to cover an entire model with individually made rivets, most
of you will prefer to speed the process up as much as possible.
The most common solution are the so called pounce wheels. A number
of variations is possible, as shown below.  Some tools used to produce rivet lines. B1 & B2. These are examples of commercial "pounce wheels". The correct term is "pattern tracer", and they are widely used in the sewing industry to transfer drawings to woven fabrics. The B1 type depict a very popular model traded by MicroMark which is also used by RC modelers to transfer drawings to balsa wood sheets. Type B2 illustrates a typical dressmaker type. Both (B1 and B2) types have been heavily criticized by many modelers. I´ll try to explain the reason in a moment, but let me warn you that these are the ´ordinary types´ of pattern tracers. There are more expensive types called "needle point pattern tracers" that will perform much better. The bad news about this sort of tool is the lack of availability for different wheels (different pitch). However, let me add that pattern tracers are excellent tool to emboss rivets on pre-cut skin sections to be glued around fuselages and wings. In this case, the back side of the plastic sheet will show raised (buttonhead) rivets.  Two examples of needle point pattern tracers. a.) Start with an old drafting compass. Amputate one of the legs as indicated in the figure. Depending on the model of compass, you may need to grind here and there to achieve a more thin leg.
b.) Next, you have
to hunt some clock/watch gears down. Good hunt. Prefer solid,
thick gears (0.3-1.0 mm is fine). A common problem related to
using watch gears is the width of the gear. If used this way,
the gear will not engrave a dot, but a dash instead (more on that
later). In summary, you need gears with the desired pitch (p)
and to solve the width (w) problem.
A simple way to
adjust you gear for riveting purposes is to taper it by grinding
one side against a file or grinding stone.
B4. Armor
modelers will claim this is a ´Zimmerit´ applicator.
Nope. This is simply a tool made out of those saws that come with
office tape holders. Their tooth are already very sharp and you
can sharpen them even more with a file if necessary. The basic
procedure is simply to press the saw along the rivet line. Try
to distribute the pressure equally on the tooth.
As you can see,
of the four MicroMark pounce wheels, two are virtually unusable.
They have the aforementioned gear width problem. Of course, they
can be sharpened with the aid of a grinding stone or files. The
dressmaker pattern transfer (B2) produced very convincing rivets.
As I said before, finding the desired pitch may be a problem in
this case. My home-made riveter (B3) is one of my favorites, resulting
in very clean rivet lines that virtually dismiss sanding. The
B4 tool has a limited use, but it is very handy for engraving
rivet lines on landing gear doors and other small parts.
3.) RAISED RIVETS Some time ago Archer Fine Transfers used to produce dry-transfers for rivets. It was kinda line of tiny, thick dry transfer dots that, once applied to the model and painted, looked like realistic buttonhead rivets. This line is discontinued now... Unfortunately, because I believe that was the perfect solution. I know a couple of folks experimenting with regular dry-transfers and silk-screened rivets. The later seems very promising, but I don´t have a positive answer so far. Besides, this is supposed to be fun, right? Now if you are a scratchbuilder, most tools described here can be used to rivet pre-cut skin sections. Once riveted, these styrene skins are glued atop core fuselage and wings. The only difference is that the raised rivet will appear on the back side or the skin. Let´s see some examples below. I used a piece of 0.25 mm thick PVC sheet:  Engraving rivets on a piece of PVC sheet (0.25 mm thick). Front side.  Engraving rivets on a piece of PVC sheet (0.25 mm thick). Back side. Note that, when
individually done, it´s tuff to keep the pressure constant.
Skinning an entire aircraft model is not for everyone... Few things
in the modeling world can be more frustating. On the other hand, the
technique is a nice way to enhance added-on access panels, armor plating,
fairings etc... Well, that´s
it for now guys. The objective of this article was to introduce you
to some possibilities concerning riveting plastic models. Of course
there are other options/variations of the tools presented here. How
and where to use these tools is, as I said before, subject of another
article. And remember: nothing
can beat a creative modeler approaching a given task with careful
planning. We hope this note will help you on your next project. © Rato Marczak & LSP 2004 |
