SonexBuilders.net

Necessity is the mother of invention.

I have an Avery C Frame with a ram for riveting. I don't have a ram that is drilled for dimple dies, or other rivet sets. I have an email into Cleveland to see if their drilled ram will fit my 30+ year old Avery. But I'm tired of stopping work to wait for stuff. Patience is a virtue that I do not have.

So...
How to adapt my dimple dies to my Avery. My final idea was a concentrically drilled dowel. Inside diameter is 3/16 to accept the dies, out side diameter is the same as the diameter of the ram. Now, how to I make the connection? Turned out to be extremely easy! I used a short piece of heat shrink to attach the dowel to the dimple die (Just so you know the shaft of the dimple die is about 1/32 proud of the dowel. This way, no force is exerted on the dowel.). Then I used another piece of heat shrink to attach that "sub-assembly" to the ram. In theory the heat shrink will/should shrink concentrically, so that the dies line up.

Works PERFECTLY!!

Almost as good as having a friend with a lathe!

Bryan Cotton wrote:Almost as good as having a friend with a lathe!

According to Google maps: 2 hours and 36 minutes.

Will your wife be upset when you tell her you have to move????

Since my original post, I've found a piece of 1/2" rod that should make a new ram. Since you live so far away, I've learned to be quite good at concentrically drilling round shafts on my drill press

You should join our EAA Chapter and then you can fly down to use the lathe.

Bryan Cotton wrote:You should join our EAA Chapter and then you can fly down to use the lathe.

But I need the lathe to fix the dimpler to finish the plane to fly down there so I can use the lathe.