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Old 06-16-2019, 09:42 PM   #141
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Originally Posted by inhof009 View Post
Compressor goes to about 120, but I only had the sender[sic] at 90, which is what it lists as max psi. As for the back shattering, that doesn't have compressed air anywhere, just spring loaded. I found the springs about halfway across the yard as well...

I don't think it was the mandrel shooting off too fast. It comes out after releasing the trigger, which I hadn't yet, and the mandrel is actually presently stuck in the riveter still.

From what I can tell, the 1/4 riveters are much better built than the 3/16, so I'd be very surprised if you have the same issues.
Well, now I have a mandrel stuck in my riveter as well. I made one attempt at driving a rivet after getting the pressure up; the rivet was only very slightly deformed and slightly bent to one side, and now that mandrel is completely stuck in the riveter.

I tried disassembling my riveter and I see what you mean about the springs now. I'm going to have a bitch of a time reassembling this, although I may just take it as it is back to Harbor Freight.

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Old 06-17-2019, 06:16 AM   #142
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Milwaukee makes an M12 rivet gun now
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Old 06-17-2019, 08:01 AM   #143
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Well, now I have a mandrel stuck in my riveter as well. I made one attempt at driving a rivet after getting the pressure up; the rivet was only very slightly deformed and slightly bent to one side, and now that mandrel is completely stuck in the riveter.

I tried disassembling my riveter and I see what you mean about the springs now. I'm going to have a bitch of a time reassembling this, although I may just take it as it is back to Harbor Freight.
Noooooo! I cursed it for you!

I did indeed add hydraulic oil prior to using it, with that PITA tiny wrench on a cap that may as well have been welded on. The only difference between them is that the first one I made the classic mistake of filling the oil up to the threads. At least, I was trying to until I noticed it was dumping all of the oil out.

I dropped by HF again today to talk to them about it. We came to the agreement that they would give me another and if it fails, then we'll make some noise in HQ about it and I'll get my money back. I'm hoping that this one will be similar to the first one I got and hold up long enough to finish the job. At this point, all I need to do is go and secure the side panels, which is many fewer than the first one was able to do.
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Old 06-17-2019, 08:03 AM   #144
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Unfortunately a quality rivet gun costs a bit of money. We use one regularly at work for stainless steel rivets and it cost around $370 from McMaster Carr. I looked some up at Grainger since they have a store in Norfolk and they have some nice ones for less than $200. Look at the General Duty ones in the link below.
https://www.grainger.com/search?sear...searchBar=true
Quite a bit of money indeed! Looks like you can spend up to $5k easily on a single riveter on there. I suppose if you need to do a lot of rivets and want a tool that will survive it, you get what you pay for!
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Old 06-17-2019, 03:07 PM   #145
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Noooooo! I cursed it for you!

I did indeed add hydraulic oil prior to using it, with that PITA tiny wrench on a cap that may as well have been welded on. The only difference between them is that the first one I made the classic mistake of filling the oil up to the threads. At least, I was trying to until I noticed it was dumping all of the oil out.

I dropped by HF again today to talk to them about it. We came to the agreement that they would give me another and if it fails, then we'll make some noise in HQ about it and I'll get my money back. I'm hoping that this one will be similar to the first one I got and hold up long enough to finish the job. At this point, all I need to do is go and secure the side panels, which is many fewer than the first one was able to do.
Crap, I got a replacement 1/4" riveter from HF and I'm now able to drive aluminum 1/4" rivets but it fails on the stainless steel ones. I have a feeling this crappy pancake compressor of mine can't deliver sufficient air for this.
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Old 06-17-2019, 03:56 PM   #146
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Crap, I got a replacement 1/4" riveter from HF and I'm now able to drive aluminum 1/4" rivets but it fails on the stainless steel ones. I have a feeling this crappy pancake compressor of mine can't deliver sufficient air for this.
Shouldn't be the compressor. I'm running a 4-gal (I think) pancake and it's fine.

The gun I got this morning failed on the third rivet. The back end popped off AGAIN. Hit me in the arm this time, so I've got a nice welt. I did some looking around and the only other option for me for a QUALITY rivet gun was to order one through HD, Lowes, or Amazon, all involving waiting at least a few days. With a good amount of FuckThis-itis and NeedToBeDone-opathy, I headed back to HF to see if they would let me grab YET ANOTHER gun to get the job done. Long story short, they did, and this gun (so far) has held up through 20-30 rivets. The trigger leaks and it's requiring 2 pulls when the other guns all required one, but the rivets are solid and the gun hasn't broken.

What follows is anecdotal at best, and absolute bullshit voodoo at worst.
I noticed a difference between the guns at HF. I was opening the boxes and looking at the backs, and I saw two different kinds. There was the one shown here in the graphic:

and the other kind, that had two backs break on me, lacked the teeth on the back. See red arrow here:

I inspected the insides and noticed that the ones I had broken on me lacked the teeth, where this one I have now has the teeth and also appears to have bearings on the back.
This is at this time uncorroborated by my wife but, if true, it appears that there are two qualities of these guns currently around, ones that have bearings and ones that will break the back in a few rivets. The backs that broke had evidence that the pulling mechanism had come off center and punched out the back casing during the pull.
/voodoo

I'm waiting for my wife to get home from work in a bit so that we can finish riveting. Unfortunately, it looks like the 500 rivets we got are not going to be enough to fully secure everything, so I'll be running to Grainger to grab some more rivets tomorrow. Probably going to grab some open-ended regular steel ones for the floor holes as well, as long as I'm there.
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Old 06-17-2019, 07:39 PM   #147
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Anywhere nearby to rent a gun?

And maybe ask HF to pay for the rental?
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Old 06-17-2019, 07:45 PM   #148
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Anywhere nearby to rent a gun?

And maybe ask HF to pay for the rental?
I honestly considered that. Couldn't find anywhere nearby to rent, unfortunately.
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Old 06-17-2019, 08:11 PM   #149
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I honestly considered that. Couldn't find anywhere nearby to rent, unfortunately.
That's a bummer for sure.

I feel your pain.....I've had failures with two air chisels, two 1/2" drills, and one
3" cut-off tool from HF at various stages of my build......luckily, they're only 4 miles from my bus, and they have a fast return policy...." Got the receipt? Cool....just place it over on that counter and go get a new one."

Meanwhile, my 25 yr-old Black and Decker drill and 40+ yr-old Skilsaw just keep plugging right along.
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Old 06-17-2019, 10:34 PM   #150
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That's a bummer for sure.

I feel your pain.....I've had failures with two air chisels, two 1/2" drills, and one
3" cut-off tool from HF at various stages of my build......luckily, they're only 4 miles from my bus, and they have a fast return policy...." Got the receipt? Cool....just place it over on that counter and go get a new one."

Meanwhile, my 25 yr-old Black and Decker drill and 40+ yr-old Skilsaw just keep plugging right along.
I actually lost the receipt to my 1/4" riveter, but they exchanged it for me anyway (the cashier said it was a miracle her manager approved it). I feel like the manager could read my mind and knew I was just going to buy a new one and return the old one later with that receipt anyway.
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Old 06-17-2019, 10:38 PM   #151
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Shouldn't be the compressor. I'm running a 4-gal (I think) pancake and it's fine.
Are you doing aluminum or stainless rivets? I can drive 1/4" aluminum rivets with my hand-riveter without too much problem, but my 1/4" stainless rivets are completely impossible to do that way. These stainless steel rivets seem to require substantially more oomph than my setup is delivering here.
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Old 06-18-2019, 06:14 AM   #152
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Are you doing aluminum or stainless rivets? I can drive 1/4" aluminum rivets with my hand-riveter without too much problem, but my 1/4" stainless rivets are completely impossible to do that way. These stainless steel rivets seem to require substantially more oomph than my setup is delivering here.
I'm doing stainless steel 3/16", and they do require quite the force to pop.
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Old 06-18-2019, 06:18 AM   #153
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Did you put hydraulic oil in yours? I'm looking at my setup instructions - you apparently remove the air cylinder and pour in hydraulic fluid (box says hydraulic oil), but it's not clear on how much.

This is different from the air tool oil that you spray in the air opening once in a while.
They put that in there in case the fluid has leaked out or something. Mine was already full.
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Old 06-18-2019, 12:49 PM   #154
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I'm thinking about the next steps here and my goal is to slightly modify my vehicle electronics. Here are my thoughts:

The wires were hung above the windows, and won't re-attach there because it is now 1' higher than before, so I have to find a new location anyway. This new location is going to be near the floor, under the chair rail.
I have removed all of the lights and speakers, but I intend to add back the speakers. The lights will likely be added back in the house 12V system. Therefore, I would like to remove those relevant wires and use them in the house system.
On the front, I have 3 connectors that literally do nothing right now. On top of that, I deleted my upper flashers.
Rear flashers are going to be re-wired as brake and turn lights.

With all that in mind, I've like to remove any extra wires that I can so I can re-use them in my house 12V system. I've already re-connected everything so my current plan is to fire up the bus and confirm that all the lights currently work as designed. Once I'm satisfied with that, I'll open up the bundle housings and remove the obviously superfluous wires. Then, I'll rewire the rear flashers to work as brake and turn signals, then confirm that those do indeed work. Then, I'll start removing the extra plugs floating around.

Does anyone have any tips or modifications for my plan?
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Old 06-18-2019, 04:34 PM   #155
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if you can put the wires in conduit, that keeps them safer as well and makes future changes easier
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Old 06-23-2019, 04:55 PM   #156
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Didn't get as much work done this weekend as we had hoped, but we got some stuff done. Power was out for most of the day on Saturday, but when it came back on we were able to fully secure the skinning and seal all of the seams!

Today we decided to paint, so while my wife washed and sanded, I put a new piece of metal on the rear roof emergency exit, since my original "patch" was leaking at the screws and I had extra sheet metal from the skin. Much more pleased with this patch job:

We tried painting today with the HVLP gun and, it did not go well. We probably didn't thin the paint enough, because it was just splattering out of the gun instead of a good stream. I'm getting a lot of different opinions as far as thinning, also. Some people say thin 10%, and I've seen people thin as high as 50%. Another issue we were having was the compressor we have been using is a loaner from a friend, and it's a 2 CFM pancake compressor. It's unfortunately not up to the task so instead of frying it, we're thinking about renting one from HD next weekend for the day and crank it out. Also going to add some hardener to it. Here's what we were able to do before we stopped today:

Even with all of our issues, it looks much better than the previous rolled on stuff! We'll likely do 2 full coats next Saturday to get it nice and painted.
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Old 06-23-2019, 04:56 PM   #157
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Oh, and the latest rivet gun from HF (the one I got AFTER getting hit in the arm when it exploded) has been holding up nicely!
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Old 06-23-2019, 05:26 PM   #158
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Oh, and the latest rivet gun from HF (the one I got AFTER getting hit in the arm when it exploded) has been holding up nicely!
Bus is looking good, man! My second 1/4" rivet gun from HF has been working as well (I feel bad for whoever gets my prior one if they refurbish it - I found one of the two springs from the back when cleaning up yesterday).

Sad to hear the pancake comp isn't doing the job for the sprayer. I have one of those myself now and at least it's working for the rivet gun.
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Old 06-23-2019, 05:53 PM   #159
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We tried painting today with the HVLP gun and, it did not go well. We probably didn't thin the paint enough, because it was just splattering out of the gun instead of a good stream. I'm getting a lot of different opinions as far as thinning, also. Some people say thin 10%, and I've seen people thin as high as 50%. Another issue we were having was the compressor we have been using is a loaner from a friend, and it's a 2 CFM pancake compressor. It's unfortunately not up to the task so instead of frying it, we're thinking about renting one from HD next weekend for the day and crank it out. Also going to add some hardener to it. Here's what we were able to do before we stopped today...

Quote:
Originally Posted by musigenesis View Post
Sad to hear the pancake comp isn't doing the job for the sprayer. I have one of those myself now and at least it's working for the rivet gun.

You *ABSOLUTELY WILL* need a much bigger compressor! HVLP stands for "High Volume, Low Pressure", so you'll need a high volume compressor. HF shows the bigger gun requires 12 CFM @ 40 PSI, way more than any pancake compressor will deliver. Even HF's larger 2.5 HP compressor generates ~6 CFM at 40 PSI, still under the requirements but probably workable if you don't mind some recharge time. You'll be looking around a 5 HP compressor for 12-16 CFM @ 40 PSI.
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Old 06-23-2019, 05:54 PM   #160
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Didn't get as much work done this weekend as we had hoped, but we got some stuff done. Power was out for most of the day on Saturday, but when it came back on we were able to fully secure the skinning and seal all of the seams!

Today we decided to paint, so while my wife washed and sanded, I put a new piece of metal on the rear roof emergency exit, since my original "patch" was leaking at the screws and I had extra sheet metal from the skin. Much more pleased with this patch job:

We tried painting today with the HVLP gun and, it did not go well. We probably didn't thin the paint enough, because it was just splattering out of the gun instead of a good stream. I'm getting a lot of different opinions as far as thinning, also. Some people say thin 10%, and I've seen people thin as high as 50%. Another issue we were having was the compressor we have been using is a loaner from a friend, and it's a 2 CFM pancake compressor. It's unfortunately not up to the task so instead of frying it, we're thinking about renting one from HD next weekend for the day and crank it out. Also going to add some hardener to it. Here's what we were able to do before we stopped today:

Even with all of our issues, it looks much better than the previous rolled on stuff! We'll likely do 2 full coats next Saturday to get it nice and painted.
thinning not more than 10% is a good rule for brush, roller, or airless spray gun - not so much for an HVLP gun - have to thin the paint enough that the droplets shear together and the paint flows out to make a beautiful job of it - 'HVLP' stands for 'High Volume Low Pressure' - while your little compressor may put out enough pressure, it's volume is far too low - if you have a good shop vac, it might put out the volume of air you need for your HVLP - set the hose up so it's blowing rather than sucking, tape a suitable sized airline into the hose from the shop vac and try it on your HVLP - doesn't cost you anything to speak of and it's quite possible that the shop vac will build the pressure you need - it should have ample volume - thin your paint until you get a nice vaporized spray - the HVLP's usually come with a viscosity gauge - use that if you have it to judge how thick/thin your paint should be
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