Iron/Steel plates and rivets

[Iterum]

DETAILLING MATTERS

For all of us looking foreward to deal with rivited iron/steel in a bigger scale here an example of a original cylindrical hopper from 1923 built in a Saxonian iron works factory:



The plate joining in frontside view clearly shows the inregular edges of the plates:

An upside view to the joinings of three plates:

The scale of these rivets in millimeters:

Hope this helps to end into the faith of todays' standards of exact edges and so on - it is craftmenship's work without laserguided CNC-accuracy.

Hth, C-H

 

[Roger Pellett]

I am building a model of a Great Lakes Freighter with a riveted steel hull. There are still a few ships sailing here on the Lakes that have partially riveted hulls. Following hull failures of all welded Liberty Ships in World War II, naval architects reverted to incorporating a few riveted seams in the hulls of otherwise welded vessels since cracks did not propagate across a riveted seam. Advances in welding and steel making technology have made this practice unnecessary. Fraser Shipbuilding located here in the Duluth Harbor still is able to repair these riveted hull seams. They were also hired by forensic Naval Architects investigating the Titanic wreck to make riveted test panels for destructive testing.

The rivets posted in the photo above are NOT the type that were used to fabricate ship hulls. The rivets shown above are called Snap Rivets. These were used to fabricate relatively light gage steel in above water locations; smoke stacks, ventilators, superstructure etc. The prominent dome shaped heads were formed with special dies.

Ship hull plating was fabricated with Pan Head rivets. These had a large cylindrical head with a trapezoidal cross section on one end. The other end called the “point” was plain. The entire rivet was heated in a forge. Placed in the hole, the end with the head was held tight while the point was closed up (hammered). Done properly, the closed up end was nearly flush with the shell plating of the hull. A large buildup of metal would have been removed with a cold chisel. Without getting into the structural mechanics, the huge holding power of these pan head rivets, was based on a different principle than the Snap Head rivets.

Rivets joining shell plating in a ship’s hull would be invisible at most scale viewing distances. In no case would they look like the die formed Snap Head rivets.

Roger

 

[Bob Cleek]

What Roger just said. Moreover, at the scale viewing distances of most all model scales, the edges of the plates would be straight and fair to begin with and much thicker than the example pictured.

 

[Iterum]

Thanks you Bob & Roger very much, so I do not have to think about rivets on my 1/64 torpedoboats.

 

[Moxis]

In a few recently made models I have tried to imitate riveted metal plates by covering the hull with plates made of soft 0.2 mm aluminium foil where riveting is pressed using a tool made of suitable gear.

 

[Corsair11]

If I may ask, what is the approximate average diameter of a visible hull rivet head. I’m working on super-detailing a 1/200 U-boat and from eyeball proportions those appear to be in the 1 to 2 inch range. Am I close??