Fitting Dome head solid rivets?

[mariner100]

Hello all ;D
I don't know if anyone knows of any tools that can be purchased to fit relatively small roundhead/domehead solid copper rivets. I renovate old ships lanterns and regularly have to remove such rivets to strip down and polish the lanterns. Until now I have put a thread on new copper rivets, cut them to length and just put a nut on the inside. This looks and works fine as the lanterns are for decoration rather than any real value but I would like to try and replace the rivets in the proper fashion.Any suggestions or pointers would be welcome....Thanks...Andy

[Deleted]

There are rivet squeezers that you can buy, but I suspect the largest they will handle is 3/32" copper rivets. I imagine your rivets are a lot bigger.

However, why do you need a snap head on the inside? I would put a copper rivet in from the outside, and support the head in a rivet snap of the correct size, then just hammer the shank over flat on the inside. A small countersink on the inside of the plate will help.

[mariner100]

Hi thanks for the reply.
I have had a look at the "rivet squeezeers" but I am not sure if the "reach" is long enough. The rivets I use are not terribly big, the shank diameter is about 5 mm max ( around 3/16 ). I will try your suggestion but I need to be careful as often the part I am working with has been polished and it would be really irrititating to damage the surface. As for the snap head on the inside it was just to try and get an "original look"..Andy

[famuel]

Google aircraft rivet snaps there are quite lot turn up on ebay

[92220]

Not cheap, but if you search for item 122689299438 on Ebay, the listing shows squeezers up to 4" reach.

Bob.