Cutting an Ali cowl

[Steve Perry]

For rivets you use a rivet snap and dolly if they are for structurally joining two plates, if they are just cosmetic then you use the dolly and a countersink.

[Mike Ellis]

Thanks Steve. I have tried various methods as yet and nothings worked as I would have liked, however we press on.
Its nice of you to have taken the time to try and help a fellow modeller. I will let you know how I get on.

[Steve Perry]

I presume you are using domed rivets, the cosmetic way to fit them is to countersink the back of the plate, cut the rivet so that it sticks out of the countersunk side about 1/2 the shank diameter, put the dolly in the vice and support the dome of the rivet in it, use the ball end of a hammer to beat the shank into the countersunk hole spreading it out.

The rivet needs to be no harder than the sheet you are fitting it to, aluminum rivets may need annealing before use, duralumin ones need to be freshly annealed before use as they start to harden.

[Mike Ellis]

Thanks to everyone for helping me sort my Ali cowl out. The rivets are in and the slots are cut and I must say it looks very good lol. The resin disks worked great to cut the slots but I didn't manage to set the rivets to my satisfaction so I epoxyed the cowl ring on , drilled the holes at the correct spacing and inserted the rivets and glued them in lol. Its only cosmetic anyhow. I rang Mick Reeves and asked h how he did his and guess what !! He does the same !!!!!!
Ah well why make things hard for yourself !!