Rivet Tool Overview I created a rivet tool to detail my Falke garage kit and it's received a lot of interest so here's how to make one. It's fairly simple - just a 3.5 inch nail with a concave tip (bowl) and rubber wine cork handle. Takes about 10 minutes to make one at home, but the result is very precise rivets. I've tried various techniques - pin heads, putty, melted sprue, styrene rod etc, but I found this to be the easiest way to crank out rivets in bulk with good accuracy. The tool can fabricate domed or flush rivets too. Domed rivets require a pilot hole with a nub of styrene that gets squashed into shape. Flush rivets are made by pressing the tool directly into the surface material. A hacksaw blade can be used as a guide to create a line of rivets too (any serrated edge will do, even the metal strip from a box of cling wrap). Rivet scale depends on what you need and how small your drill bits are. For the Falke, I went with a 1mm diameter because it matched the Nitto MaK/SF3D aircraft kits. Prototype Bowl & Pointed Tips Final Bowl Tip Making The Tool Bench grind the nail into a fine point. Pinch the tip with 400 grit wet-dry paper and twist the nail back and forth to smooth out the cone shaped point. Grind the tip flat, down to the cross-sect diameter for your rivet To help position the drill bit, score the center of the flat tip with a sharp exacto knife. Pin-vise/finger twist the drill bit using the score as a guide. Knock the edges back a little with 600 grit - the tip is pretty sharp otherwise ;-) Find a rubber wine cork, make a vertical slice halfway up, halfway deep. Embed the nail and tape it up. Tip: To create a wider groove around the rivet, use a drill-bit with a small diameter than the rivet. Flush Rivets Pencil-in the rivet locations with a ruler or flexible hack-saw blade. Hasegawa also sell rivet guides. Center the tip of the tool over the pencil mark,and press firmly enough to create a very minor indent. While maintaining contact with surface, rock the tool in a circular motion, gradually increasing pressure. Note: When working with cured/hardened putty, take care not to overwork the rivet otherwise the putty material will compress and flake off. If a rivet happens to flake off, clean out the loose material, place a small amount of putty into the hole and re-do the rivet with the softer material. Putty Surface (Curved) Putty Result (with repaired rivet) Styrene Surface Styrene Result Domed Rivets Domed rivets are slightly more complicated but follow the same shaping process as flush rivets. You'll need styrene rod (0.5mm), super glue, pin vise and small drill bit. Pencil-in the rivet locations and drill out a small pilot hole for each. Take a length of styrene rod, coat one end with Super Glue and insert into the pilot hole. With pliers, cut the styrene rod slight above the surface. Leave enough sticking out for shaping the dome. Place the rivet tool over the styrene nub and press down, rocking the rivet the tool in a circular motion. Continue to twirl, twist and rock the rivet tool until you achieve the desired domed rivet. Use the outer edge of the rivet tool tip to slice off excess styrene. Pilot hole, glue then trim styrene Gently Compress Styrene nub Circular motion, shaping the dome. Domed Result (indicated) Alternative to all that Jewellers Beading Tool Save yourself all this trouble and go buy a set of Jewellers beading tools. I did...A set contains about 20 different diameters...You will find them on Ebay for about $15.