Rivets...

[Moose777]

Has anyone used a rivet gun to attatch a window into their case?

I am getting ready to actually install teh window and I was wondering if using rivets is practical?

 

[exile29]

Never did it. I guess you could, providing that you used washers (with the same diameter as the rivet) on the inside. Otherwise, I imagine you would damage the plexi.

 

[Moose777]

Yeah, I thought of that so I went with bolts. Figured I had small 1/4" bolts lying around the house that instead of buying a $40 rivet gin and rivets I'd just go with bolts.

 

[Nivram]

For future consideration, rivets would work just fine. What you'd want to buy is rivets that will only crush down to a certain depth before the break-away piece breaks (I have no idea what it's called, but it's the piece that goes into the throat of the rivet gun, and breaks off when the rivet is compressed fully).

Most rivets you might be familiar with will crush down to 1/16 or 1/8 of an inch, which wouldn't work with a window, due to the thickness of the materials. But you can find rivets that would be longer, and thus crush down to a longer length, and not break the plastic. I would back up the plastic window with some metal on both sides, since that's likely to take the physical force of the rivet better. A 3/16" or 1/4" fastened length would likely work better than the shorter ones you'll normally think of using.

Hopefully that makes sense to you?

 

[Moose777]

Yes, it does. Thank you very much.

Next case I get that I mod I'll keep that in mind. I'm kind of running out of things to do on this case I have now.