Strong Belt Loop Attachment?

[chuck123wapati]

2 hours ago, Spyros said:

No way.  You made me go to the shed on a Friday night LOL

Here's some leather. 

Top side is Sedwick English bridle, bottom side is full grain veg tan, glued and stitched together.  As a combination it's tough as they come, the kind of thing you can easily hang your body weight from:

And this is one double cap rivet.

And this is how the rivet is supposed to fit: it must stick out a couple of mm, and there needs to be a tiny bit of room in hole around it for the rivet cap to go inside the leather when installed.  This is important.

and this is how to install them.  The metal base with the blue collar is from a hand press, I've drilled a hole on the block of wood to hold it.  Both the base and the concave setter are exactly the correct size for that rivet, this is also important.

A couple of hard hits with a heavy maul.  By hard I mean HARD, no BS. 

Obviously I was holding the setter when hitting, but I was holding the phone this time to take the photo.

And this is what it looks like installed, the top of the stem has completely mushroomed inside the rivet and it has been reduced to between 2/3 to 1/2 of its original length.  This is the most important thing, I see some people on videos giving their rivets a couple of light taps on the table and calling it "ok done".  Well good luck with that.  The rivet needs to be hit hard enough to be a little bit embedded in the leather.

Here I am putting the strap in the vice.

And then I pulled with everything I got.  No photos of that because I was pulling with both hands, plus one foot on the vice.

After a lot of pulling, eventually this is what happened:

The rivet stayed in its place and it tore right through the leather.

The head of the rivet itself deformed as you'd expect, because I was pulling it sideways, but the stem is firmly planted in the cap and still holds just fine.

Ok? That is a properly installed double cap rivet.

I have no idea what you guys are doing that causes your rivets to fail. 

Mine don't.

simple answer = often they don't use them in places where rivets should be used. the strength and your perfect example shows this, rivets are best used for shear loads, loads perpendicular to the axis of the shaft, like you showed pulling on the shaft of the rivet. when folks use them in an area where the pressure of the load is on the head then the head pulls off  or the leather stretches around the head and  gives way. To me most folks are just ignorant about the technical aspect of fastening systems and don't realize they play out even in the smallest places like the leather world

[MtlBiker]

2 minutes ago, chuck123wapati said:

simple answer = often they don't use them in places where rivets should be used. the strength and your perfect example shows this, rivets are best used for shear loads, loads perpendicular to the axis of the shaft, like you showed pulling on the shaft of the rivet. when folks use them in an area where the pressure of the load is on the head then the head pulls off  or the leather stretches around the head and  gives way. To me most folks are just ignorant about the technical aspect of fastening systems and don't realize they play out even in the smallest places like the leather world

That's exactly why the rivets failed on my little belt pouch loop.  Getting in and out of the car, and sometimes in my shop, I'd snag the pouch on something so the rivet was being pulled in a way that put the load on the head.  I'll be stitching those belt loops from now on.

 

[Spyros]

And I'll keep riveting them LOL

All happy :D

[chuck123wapati]

11 minutes ago, MtlBiker said:

That's exactly why the rivets failed on my little belt pouch loop.  Getting in and out of the car, and sometimes in my shop, I'd snag the pouch on something so the rivet was being pulled in a way that put the load on the head.  I'll be stitching those belt loops from now on.

 

Exactly why they failed!!!! yup or use the slot method that Fred suggested, it works because it shifts the load on the rivets to the stem.

[battlemunky]

5 hours ago, Spyros said:

No way.  You made me go to the shed on a Friday night LOL

Xsnipped out the pics to keep the thread as concise as possibleX

Mine don't.

Man, thanks for the activity. I never doubted what you were saying and by no means was I calling you out or anything so I hope that wasn't what spurred you to action my friend! I'm still maintaining, though, that sewing is stronger than the double capped rivets and that removing them is pretty easy using needle nosed pliers.

I've used the double capped rivets to affix straps to totes which is exactly the scenario you tested. They haven't failed (to my knowledge) but ever since I saw the video testing the ez rivets, bit/burr, and sewing, I've only used the double caps for aesthetics and have always used stitching as the main means to join the pieces. I did use them early on on the corners of the opening of a sheath for a Leatherman and they pulled away because that was the wrong use. But yeah, ever since, I have relied on stitching or bit/burr rivets. Also, I do use the correct length shaft but not always the setter and anvil, so that is a huge difference that I'm sure matters. I do whack em pretty good unlike a lot of the videos you see out there...I don't know how a lot of folks get away with some stuff. I love Corter's videos but seeing some of his double capped rivet work in them makes me wonder if he lets that stuff leave his shop.

[Spyros]

8 hours ago, battlemunky said:

Man, thanks for the activity. I never doubted what you were saying and by no means was I calling you out or anything so I hope that wasn't what spurred you to action my friend! I'm still maintaining, though, that sewing is stronger than the double capped rivets and that removing them is pretty easy using needle nosed pliers.

I've used the double capped rivets to affix straps to totes which is exactly the scenario you tested. They haven't failed (to my knowledge) but ever since I saw the video testing the ez rivets, bit/burr, and sewing, I've only used the double caps for aesthetics and have always used stitching as the main means to join the pieces. I did use them early on on the corners of the opening of a sheath for a Leatherman and they pulled away because that was the wrong use. But yeah, ever since, I have relied on stitching or bit/burr rivets. Also, I do use the correct length shaft but not always the setter and anvil, so that is a huge difference that I'm sure matters. I do whack em pretty good unlike a lot of the videos you see out there...I don't know how a lot of folks get away with some stuff. I love Corter's videos but seeing some of his double capped rivet work in them makes me wonder if he lets that stuff leave his shop.

Don't worry about it, I got passionate about rivets and it lasted about 3 seconds LOL

Here's the thing... if I have proven that the rivet is stronger than my leather, then what does it matter if the thread is even stronger?  Mind you I'm 6'5/290, that was an *extreme* force applied to get that leather to rip, totally unrealistic.  Maybe relevant to saddles? Parachutes? I don't know, I don't make those things.   

I'm very sceptical about youtube videos in general, in my experience more than half of them are just flat out wrong.  Good people, good intentions, but wrong regardless.

Edited June 4, 2022 by Spyros

[battlemunky]

1 hour ago, Spyros said:

Don't worry about it, I got passionate about rivets and it lasted about 3 seconds LOL

Here's the thing... if I have proven that the rivet is stronger than my leather, then what does it matter if the thread is even stronger?  Mind you I'm 6'5/290, that was an *extreme* force applied to get that leather to rip, totally unrealistic.  Maybe relevant to saddles? Parachutes? I don't know, I don't make those things.   

I'm very sceptical about youtube videos in general, in my experience more than half of them are just flat out wrong.  Good people, good intentions, but wrong regardless.

But it was on the internet...

:D 

[Bert03241]

7 minutes ago, battlemunky said:

But it was on the internet...

:D 

so it had to be true

[chuck123wapati]

13 hours ago, Spyros said:

Don't worry about it, I got passionate about rivets and it lasted about 3 seconds LOL

Here's the thing... if I have proven that the rivet is stronger than my leather, then what does it matter if the thread is even stronger?  Mind you I'm 6'5/290, that was an *extreme* force applied to get that leather to rip, totally unrealistic.  Maybe relevant to saddles? Parachutes? I don't know, I don't make those things.   

I'm very sceptical about youtube videos in general, in my experience more than half of them are just flat out wrong.  Good people, good intentions, but wrong regardless.

so now would you finish your demonstration and sew the two straps together and see how easy it is to tear them out. i think most all of us would love to know.

[MtlBiker]

13 minutes ago, chuck123wapati said:

so now would you finish your demonstration and sew the two straps together and see how easy it is to tear them out. i think most all of us would love to know.

Yeah, but the test (for stitching and for the rivet) really should be putting the stress on the attachment the same way that it was on my belt pouch, when catching the pouch against something while wearing it.  Just hanging off the belt puts very little stress on the loop attachment.

Any suggestion on what kind of stitching should be done on the belt loop?  A box-x stitch?  Just plain box?  I don't think that a couple of lines of stitching perpendicular to the long side of the loop would be sufficient.  I'm thinking just a box would be good.