I have never riveted (although I really like saying that word. “rivet” it’s almost as good as “yurt”) but I know its super easy.
And it’s always looked like fun!

One of these days I’m going to make body work for a bike by just riveting metal together.

I set out all my stuff I needed for today’s little project:

and got to work.

Well, first I took an odd self-portrait after a friend told me I needed a “Rosie the Riveter” picture.

Instead, I ended up with a pic that is less Rosie and more, “Help! My right arm is out of control and is attacking me with an angle grinder!”

After the photo-op, I ground off the small rectangles of surface rust and repainted the areas with some Rustoleum.

Then I got to rivet!
I didn’t realize at first that it takes a couple of ‘pumps’ of the rivet gun to make the rivets expand. Ended up with a couple of mistakes before I got the hang of it.

After a few minutes of freak-out thinking that I’d put the badges on upside-down (part of me still thinks I did. Not sure why that’s stuck in my head) I got the pipes done!

One of them needed a little touch up paint, so it’s still outside drying.
But by tomorrow they will be ready to install!
Yay!