Close Flanges

Recently, I had an awkward case where I needed to get a rivet through a skin and a flange that was located too close to another unrelated and unconnected flange to drive the rivet head. It was also too close to use a CherryMAX rivet. The top drawing shows the issue.

The solution was to drill the hole through the second flange, too, as shown in the second drawing. Then I could fit a CherryMAX rivet into the skin, and the rivet’s stem would slip through the second flange’s new hole. Since the stem doesn’t expand, I didn’t have to worry about it getting stuck in that hole.

The bottom photo shows a CherryMAX rivet that hasn’t been set. The stem is the gold-colored section on the right.

This situation doesn’t happen often, but it’s worth knowing a way to make progress when it does. Incidentally, I used a CherryMAX CR3212 rivet here. For the same diameter, it has more strength than an AN426AD rivet, so I didn’t need to worry about strength.