Copper rivets

[Tengu]

Well, I had a good haul of nails at the car boot, -copper ones.

The first lot are 5mm thick; easy to find washers online.

But the second are roofing ones, round heads and square cross sections.

I probably will have to make washers; I have some lengths of old pipe.

But how would I cut them out?

And when I put them in, do the washers go on the right side of the work, or the back?

 

[Robson Valley]

Ask a roofer what the washers might look like, if there were any. Did they just upset the ends?

I'd cut the washers out of sheet with a cold chisel and hammer. I'd stamp the square hole with the same punch
that a farrier uses to make the square nail holes in horse shoes (can't recall the name of the thing, sorry).
I make copper inlay for wood carvings with such tools.

 

[Janne]

Make sure you use either copper, bronze or S/S washers.

Placement of them - depends on what you plan to do with them?

 

[Tengu]

These are for slates, I think, -pointy tips and no washers.

Its for a knife sheath. I found a very beat up Scandanavian knife at the car boot; The sheath is intact but past it, so I thought I would make a new

 

[Janne]

Ok, so you have nails ( pointy end) and not rivets.
I assume that you want the washers on the other end of the leather?

Then bend the tip of the nail against the wa#her.
If yes, make the hole in the washer just as large as you need. Bought washers will either have a small hole but be tiny and thin, or large enough with a hole that is to big.
If you want to use the copper pipe, cut ( saw) it into short tubes, slightly longer than the intended washer, then cut up, flatten, make the hole, shape.
A major pig of a job, but once you are done you will be happy with yourself.

You write it is a Swedish knife, what brand?

 

[snappingturtle]

How many do you need ?

 

[Tengu]

Twelve. Its for a knife sheath so they need to be fairly small.

I am making a sheath for my Martindale number 12 machete and I will use the normal sized ones for that

 

[demographic]

Cut the copper roofing nails with end or side cutting pliers so they are about the same length as normal rivets then put it through the workpiece, add a washer on the other side and treat like a normal rivet, ideally with a rivet setting tool.

There's a bloke on Youtube that does a good talk on setting copper rivets. Called Harry Rogers.

I've recently made up some braces (the Americans call em Work Suspenders... Ahem) out of leather for my work carpenters framing pouches. Rivetted it with copper rivets and to be honest it just wasnt that hard to do.
Likely could have been neater but its just for work, I'm not competing against Occidental Leathers products for trade just yet.

 

[Tipi]

If you annealed the copper first (from memory you heat it to cherry red and either quench it or let it cool) you might be able to use a punch to cut out washers. Steel is definitely harder than copper!

Maybe drill out the center hole first