Electromagnetic Riviting Machine

[Peter Miles]

If you think that you need a riviter to assemble a wing for your airplane project, this may be of interest to you.

Last week I was doing the thrifty metalshaper's slightly upscale equivalent of dumpster diving. I was driving around behind a number of fabrication companies looking for scrap and salvage steel that might be available. In the midst of a large stack of wooden pallets adjacent to one company I saw some large-size tubing (12"x12" x 0.5" x 20' long for example) and stopped to take a look.

An employee of the company came out and I talked with him for a bit. It turned out that all the nice steel sitting out there was inventory, not scrap.

We talked about what the company's business is. It turns out that they build electromagnetic equipment for riviting, large machines for building entire wing panels for business jet to jumbo jet-sized airplanes, etc. He told me how to get to their high-bay building where they were putting the finishing touches on some machines being sold to Airbus. For the price of one of these machines you could buy a very nice business jet --- new!


I took this picture was taken from an open door some distance away from the machine. For scale, you can see a worker in a white shirt on a catwalk or platform on the upper right side. This machine runs back and forth on a 165 meter long production line.

Their website shows some good images of this machine and others that they build.

http://www.electroimpact.com

This gets my vote for largest riviter of the month.

[hardtailjohn]

What a machine! Makes my rivet squeezers and hammers look pretty insignificant! I thought that AirBus was using "stirwelding" on the 380....
John H.

[Doug98105]

ElectroImpact is a local success story. Interesting company, talk about a niche market. How many customers need a riveting machine of that size?

When they were a little four man shop we made their rivet dies until they bought their own CNC lathe. They supplied a super exotic tool steel that cost around a hundred bucks per pound. The stuff machined like butter and heat treated at a low temp with an air quench. Wish I still had some of the bar ends.

Doug

[Peter Miles]

The only aircraft manufacturer that I'm aware of that's using friction stir welding is Eclipse on the light jet that they have under development:

http://www.eclipseaviation.com/progr...s/20040317.htm.