Air rivet buck

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We needed it for a job, so to the scrap pile I went. It is used when driving hot rivets to shove the rivet home and hold the preformed head during the drive, and takes the same dies as the air hammer. It applies about 400 pounds with 110PSI air.Piston uses leather packing cup and spring from an old grease gun, and the rod is a length of sch80, 1.25" pipe, a pretty close size for the rivet die shank. Cylinder is a hunk of 2.5" XXH pipe from the scrap pile. Stroke is about 4" which is longer than needed (about 2" would be fine) but the hunk of pipe I used for the cylinder was  the about 5", and the extra length helps keep the piston rod in line. Pressure end is 1/2" thick round from the same slug as the guide bushing was cut. The rod guide bushing is the only part that saw more machining that an angle grinder, as it was bored on a lathe (half the total construction time)Bore was polished with bore-polisher (If you don't know what it is, see middle of the page: http://www.mcmaster.com/ctlg/DisplCt...MMainWidth=923 ) to get rid of the rust and smooth it out, but the leather packing is quite tolerant of the 1/8 to 3/16 out of round. Air fitting is a half coupling custom-machined with a makita 4.5" grinder and a course grit hard wheel so the bore of it is even with the face of the endplate. All welding is TIG, and, yes, it needs to get cut apart to service the piston. Backplate and air fitting are  1/8" fillet, and the backplate is fit for using porta-power extensions and feet.The grips for the rivet die are simple, but effective. They just keep it from falling out. The piston doesn't move fast enough to throw the die even without them.Sorry no internal shots... It got banged out fairly quickly (maybe 5 hours of work, with interruptions, much of which was boring the end on the lathe) Attached Images
Reply:Where is Da valve?   NICE job by the way.Real world weldin.  When I grow up I want to be a tig weldor.
Reply:on the end of the pigtail that feeds it, so it doesn't get banged up or interfere with getting the thing in place, and can be operated by an assistant.