Rivets?

[Nirvana]

One of member used resin rivets on his model.
This resulted I looked into the items and various scale.

The rivets are 3d so they have surface.

They are focusing majorly on R/R but can certainly be adapted for our purpose.

You can find their products @ Archer Fine Transfers, Decals, Surface Details and Dry Transfers for model builders (archertransfers.com)

[kurtvd19]

These are real nice and I have several types.  They also have weld seams to apply.  All different scales.

 

[James H]

Archer rivet decals are great. Use a decal setting solution for the best results as they help the 3D glue dot adhesive really grip the surface.

 

From my Spitfire book:

 

[Nirvana]

James and Kurt, can these decals can be applied to painted wood or brass?

 

[kurtvd19]

These are the same as almost all decals.  Decals need to be applied over gloss paint if flat paint a gloss coat is required over the flat - apply the decal and then flat over the decal to blend in.  Same with wood - the decal will not know the difference.

Applying any decal over flat paint will not allow the decal to lie flat - even with a decal setting fluid.  It will appear that there is a fog under the decal due to not being able to adhere to the lows in the flat paint.

I always over coat the decal with a clear to hide the decal film and blend it all in.

[Tomasz B]

Remember when i was doing rivets like this with toothpick and white glue and paint over it, now look how easier modeller life is 🙃😅

[Peanut6]

I was reading a build log and the builder decided not to add the rivets due to the sheer number required, estimated to be about 4000.  That got me to thinking (this is where the Admiral usually says "Uh-oh") that there must be an easy and fast way to simulate rivets.  So I ran a test yesterday afternoon and, in my case, it worked.  I knew I couldn't have come up with this idea on my own so I did a search and found this thread.  This is what I did, I mixed Titebond white glue with Model Master black acrylic paint in a 50/50 ratio.  As I mixed it up the glue appeared to curdle and the mixture turned a dark slate gray.  I figured this wasn't going to work at all.  The glue and the paint don't want to play together and the color was wrong, but ya' never know.  I grabbed a couple small pieces of scrap untreated ply I had from another project.  Applied a small dot, about 1/8" diameter using a tooth pick to one piece of ply and set it down flat.  Did the same to the other piece of ply and propped up to about 45 degrees.  Both dots had a nice little dome to them.  I figured the 45 degree lean would cause the dot to run but it didn't, it held it's shape.  I checked on them in an hour, they both dried, black not dark slate gray, and they both had a very very small "orange peel" surface texture, perfect for rivets.  Oh my gosh, I was so excited . . . but then I noticed that they had lost the dome shape.  In a what the heck moment I just added another dab onto each dot and came back in an hour.  They both had dried and this time kept the dome shape.  I could run my finger nail over them with no rub-off onto my finger or them dislodging from the ply.  This morning I went out to double check and saw that I had left my glue/paint mixture uncovered over night.  I figured that it would have dried up or at least skinned over.  But neither happened, it just got a bit thicker.  So another what the heck moment and I applied a dot about 3/16" diameter to the ply and propped it up to 45 degrees, this time it wanted to run.  I laid it flat and checked it again after 2 hours.  It hasn't fully dried yet but is getting close and it is still holding it's dome shape.  Now I'm guessing that the reason the first dots lost their dome shape is because the ply was untreated and all the moisture from the mixture leached into the wood.  Since the second application was applied over the first, it kept the dome shape because the underlayer had sealed the wood.  I can only guess that the reason the glue/paint mixture didn't dry, and the dots did, is because of the volume of the mixture versus the size of the dots.  Obviously there needs to be more testing done, different wood types in various degrees of preparation.  I don't have the materials required to do more that what I've done.  But if this process/method gets refined a bit it could be a possibility for simulating rivets if it fits ones situation and/or desired effect.  3-5 seconds a dot, even if it turns out you do have to do it twice, is faster and easier that drilling holes and trimming pins I would think.  I know this got long and I'm sorry, but I wanted to be sure to that the materials I used and my process was completely covered.

 

Take care and be safe.

 

kev  

[Nirvana]

Kev, I  like your idea and that would surely work when doing a few, but 4000! Not so much. That would the time when I say "no rivets".

[Canute]

There are rivet decals for you if you want to lay down sections of them. Archer Fine Transfers is one: http://www.archertransfers.com/index.html

Micromark also has them:  https://www.micromark.com/search?keywords=rivet decals

Disregard the non-rivet decals that showed from the search.

[kurtvd19]

6 hours ago, Peanut6 said:

Applied a small dot, about 1/8" diameter using a tooth pick to one piece of ply and set it down flat.

What kind of model is going to have 1/8" rivets?  Tiny drops of C/A approach scale but Titebond can't replicate a scale rivet - as you demonstrated.

I must be missing your point.

[ccoyle]

Kevin,

 

I have actually used the technique you described on several small models, keyword = small. The reason you don't get the dome-shape on the first application is because wood glue is water-based. The surface skins over first, and as additional moisture leaves, the structure contracts, which is why you found it necessary to apply multiple dabs. It takes a very steady hand to get the dollops of glue uniformly sized and spaced, which is partly why I have only ever used it on small projects. Something like 4000 bolt heads? Eh, no thanks!

[wefalck]

Acrylic gel would be an alternative to white glue. It shrinks less. Hand-placing the dots in regular patterns would be challenge - at least for my hands. I have contemplated making a sort of crude version of ink-jet printer for this: a syringe that squeezes a defined amount of gel onto the surface by moving the plunger forward with a kind lead-screw. The material to be 'rivetted' would need to by mounted on a x-y-table for positioning. In this way and using ink-jet printer decal-sheets one could make one's own customised rivet decals.

 

On my on-going project I have pre-marked the rivet points on the gun-carriage with the laser-cutter, when I cut the parts from thick paper. These slight depressions catch the acrylic gel and allowed me to create reasonably regular rivetting patterns.

[kurtvd19]

I used C/A glue on a 1/2" scale tugboat that had regularly spaced welding tracks on the deck to aid traction.  They were 6" long on the full size tug.  The styrene deck was marked with a light pencil at the proper spacing and the glue was applied with micro tubing to the deck.  A quick shot of accelerator was given to the applied glue after about 6 tracks.  It replicated the appearance perfectly. 

 

I would not do that today with the decals available with simulated weld beads.  Same with rivets.

[Roger Pellett]

If you type in “simulated rivets on plastic hull” you will find a whole thread on this topic.  Post 13 on this thread  by me includes photos of actual riveted ships and rivets.

 

The domed topped rivets that model railroaders like to count are called Snap Rivets, and aboard ship they are only used for joining relatively light metals like deck houses, smokestacks, etc.  

 

The rivets used to join heavy hull plating are called Pan Head rivets.  These are nearly flush on the outside and are nearly invisible at most common modeling scales.

[Dr PR]

Roger,

 

You are correct about flush head rivets on more modern ships, but early iron hull ships up to the 1920s did have domed rivets on the hull exterior, at least above the water line. They are clearly visible in some photos.

 

The blueprints for the Cleveland class cruisers that I am familiar with say that countersunk head (conical head) rivets were to be used. Then the heads were to be ground flush with the plating below the water line to reduce drag.  Unless you were very close to the hull you couldn't see any trace of the rivets, especially after it was painted. The blueprints also say that where plates of different thickness are butted together below the water line, the edge of the thicker plate was to be ground down at a 45 degree angle to the level of the thinner plate, again to reduce drag.

 

The conical head rivets were called "countersunk" or "countersunk round" where the head had a slight convex curvature. Large pan head rivets have a head that is shaped like a truncated cone, larger at the base and narrow on top (trapezoidal cross section) . Small pan head rivets have a more cylindrical head.

[wefalck]

According to my mid-19th to early 20th century textbooks on ship construction, there are many different types of rivets, depending on the location and the type of ship.

 

There is a big difference also between naval ships, where tax payers' money didn't seem to matter too much and appearance was important, and commercial ships that had to generate a return on investment. Below is image of SS ROBIN in London and one can clearly see the rivetting on the hul:

 

 

On naval ships and above the waterline, often countersunk rivets (as noted by Dr PR) were used on the hull. These would be basically invisible on a model no matter what scale. Countersunk rivets require a certain thickness of plating in order to be safe, so on the thinner superstructure plating you would have to use the typical dome-shaped rivets. Initially, when iron-shipuilding was a new technology, engineers tended to err on the safe side (though the technology as such was developed for boiler construction much ealier). As the decades progress and materials testing technology was developed, such as machines to test the tensile strength of rivets, they became more confident and rivets and their heads could be made smaller.

 

However, the choice of rivets and rivetting was not an engineers whim, but prescribed from a certain time on by the ship classification and underwriters' societies, such as Lloyds of London, Bureau Veritas, or the Germanic Lloyd.

 

On structural elemens and plating the aspects of rivets may also slightly vary depending on which side you are looking at. Below is an image of a German gun-boat built in 1876. Photographs show that hull on the outside was perfectly smooth, but you can clearly see the round rivet heads on the inside of the bulwark plating, the reinforcement strips behind seams, and the stanchions rivetted together from plate:

 

 

 

[Roger Pellett]

Here on the Lakes there are still ships operating where at least some hull seams are riveted.  In fact, Fraser Shipbuilding here in the Twin Poets of Duluth, MN and Superior, WI still maintains the capability to produce riveted hull seams.

 

The photo below shows a couple of unused pan head rivets that I kicked up in the parking lot where I worked.  100+ years ago, the plant made riveted marine boilers.  The drawing was copied from Holms’ Practical Shipbuilding, 1916 Edition.

 

When using pan head rivets to close a hull seam, the rivet with its large head is inserted from the inside of the ship.  The rivet is hammered up from the outside.  Punching the plate leaves the hole slightly conical and a properly hammered rivet completely fills up this conical hole.  The result on the outside of the hull is a slight flat dome, maybe 1/8 in high.  The inside of the hull is of course studded with the large pan heads.

 

The rivet gets its strength by shrinking while it cools and the interaction between the metal flowing into the hole and the wall of the punched hole, not the slight bump on the outside of the hull.  

 

Snap rivets are another matter, here the domed heads on the inside and outside pull things together.

 

I have noticed that fresh paint highlights the visual effect of these very slight bumps along the hull.  Probably a reason for them being more noticeable. On museum ships than on vessels in service.

 

Roger