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I just need to make alot of rivets and I was looking relatively easy/fast tecnique to make them. For now I would be happy just know how to make rhino size rivets but later I need to do sm size rivets.

Thx for advance

Find a Styrene rod of the right size, put it and a knife in a bag, and chop it up.

I'm trying to get half ball shaped rivets.

Might i ask what rivets are ? ?

honestly the best way that I use is to cut small slices of plastic rod. I've tried a ton of different techniques. A small hole punch is ok because the consistency of size and thickness, however the size is limited. Another way for armor on vehicles is to take a pen point and press it into a sheet of thin plasticard and make a small dent. The other side will have a bump that resembles are rivet. I use this method for vehicles most often because you can make a bunch of rivets quickly. Rather than gluing on each individual slice of plastic.

For what you want, there are three main ways that I know of:

1. Use plastic rod (as other people have mentioned) and, after gluing them (and waiting several hours for the glue to properly set) you take to them with a needle file and round off the edges.

2. Use PVA glue - with a little practice, you can use a pin to place tiny blobs of glue - just take a small drop of glue on the end of your pin, and dab it onto the surface (without letting the point actually touch the surface) and leave behind a tiny bead of glue.

3. This is the way serious military modelers do it, I'm told - I've never tried it because it's a lot of work. You take a length of plastic rod, and hold it near a heat source (like the flame on a lighter), and apparently it softens and 'mushrooms' a bit. Then you cut that section of rod off, drill a hole, and glue it in.

You could also try and get hold of tiny spheres of the right size (not sure where though) and drill holes that are just big enough for you to fit them in halfway.

All of these techniques work best if you mark where you want the rivets to end up first, so you can keep them in a straight line.

Half-ball ones... Regular flat ones not good enough for you?

Best I've seen is using small balls they use for decorating bowls/plants/candles with. They're about 1mm diameter. I guess if you drilled a small hole in your plasticard so that half the ball is buried, it might work. Talk about time-consuming though...

I just got an idea how to replicate existing rivets.

1. First get this stuff that hardens in oven (I don't remember the name)

2. then you make a press mould out of any rivet you like

3. "cook" your mould (takes about 15 mins)

4. after you got yourself burnt you press stuff to mould and "cook" it.

and voila you got yourself burnt fingers and ready to apply rivets.

illuknisaa wrote:1. First get this stuff that hardens in oven (I don't remember the name)

Sculpey - though this makes terrible moulds - you'd be better off using Greenstuff, because that will be slightly flexible when cured.

Not a bad idea, but terribly time consuming unless you spend some time coming up with a mould so that you can do a lot of them at once.

When you cut the styrene rod into rivets, applying a little extra CA glue give them a rounded shape.

But seriously, short of using a magnifier you can really see the diffence between a flat or rounded rivet if theyre the same diameter.

unistoo wrote:

illuknisaa wrote:1. First get this stuff that hardens in oven (I don't remember the name)

Sculpey - though this makes terrible moulds - you'd be better off using Greenstuff, because that will be slightly flexible when cured.

Not a bad idea, but terribly time consuming unless you spend some time coming up with a mould so that you can do a lot of them at once.

I'v got this stuff called Cernit. And it's not time consuming the mould was finished after like 20 mins after my post. The mould isn't flexible but it doesn't need to be if you are making simple shapes like... half balls. I got now 7 moulds and each can make up to 3 rivets, so that makes 63 rivets in an hour. If I used gs I would still waiting it to cure.

From one of the Imperial Armour books, I use the plastic pellets from inside an old water filter. Drill a tiny hole where you want the rivet, glue the pellet, and done!

i saw some thread on here that used a metal plate with a bunch of scale rivet sizes machined into it, and he slightly melted a bit of plasticard rod and pushed it into the mold and that created any size and shape of rivet he would want. I cannot remember what thread it was tho...

@ soviet Yam : here you go
http://gundamworld.it/sognidigundam/tipstricks/rivets/tips_rivets01uk.html


I been searching rivet making my self and look what i have come across :

http://www.ironhands.com/h2rivet.htm
http://santacruzwarhammer.blogspot.com/2008/01/how-to-make-simple-rivets-with-pva-glue.html
http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/showthread.php?t=62497
http://www.terragenesis.co.uk/infopages/page180.html

and here is the kit:
http://starwoodmodels.com/products/ssm/rivetkit.php



Automatically Appended Next Post:
this one might help as well just scroll down the page to find it is most amazing way of making rivet : http://henk.fox3000.com/tips.htm

and there is another one : http://ampsnz.hobbyvista.com/articles/Techniques/Rivets/rivets.htm

ultra fast way to put rivets on before the build.
http://www.marshallminiatures.talktalk.net/rapidrivets.html
I've got this even faster now with a slight change of tools. I now use a push engraver thats been slightly blunted and a self healing cutting matt.

http://www.joann.com/images/03/62/2/36226_z.jpg

This is what some train guys I knew used