Astro Pneumatic Tool PR14 Air Riveter - 3/32", 1/8", 5/32", 3/16" and 1/4" Capacity

I had a project installing almost 200 1/8" x 1/2" steel rivets. Most of this work was overhead at the end of my reach. A manual rivet gun would have been almost impossible to use.This thing worked right out of the box. Unlike some cheaper versions available this one did not require adding hydraulic oil before it could be used. All I had to do was screw the quick coupling into it, squirt a couple drops of tool oil and voila.Because the rivets were so long I had to cycle the tool twice on each rivet, nothing at all to complain about as it's a simple matter of pulling the handle. I only mention that so others are aware each stroke is a short pull.I used this at all angles and it worked flawlessly every single time. Something to note is that the discharge of the mandrel is by gravity which means the gun needs to be turned upside down after each rivet is pulled. This became a very simple habit and was second nature quite quickly. The plastic cup that catches the spent mandrels holds a lot. I did my entire project (almost 200 rivets) without having to empty the container.I used 120 psi working pressure and my 5 gallon compressor ran very little to get the job done. The tool feels sturdy and durable, nothing chinsy about it. As other reviewers comment a swivel air connection might be necessary if you're working in restricted space. This was not an issue with my project.

Installing eTracks, fixing box truck frames or sidewalls, you name the job. This tool is something I wish I knew about before I had done some heavy duty riveting tasks in the past. All my use case scenarios involved riveting 1/4 inch rivets but if any one knows how much hand force you need for 1, imagine doing it 100 times in one sitting. It will exhaust the heck out of you. This takes the arm work out and with 2-3 trigger pulls, you are locking and loading rivets one after another. Did a box truck rear wall seal which had me under the box, in-between the axle and just enough space for a skinny 180 pound guy to stick one hand out and angle this tool with a few trigger squeezes about 20 times across the 8 foot wall. No other tool would have made this even realistically possible given the tight parameters and lack of leverage or space to manually do it. Works with my cheap $100 pancake compressor. Recharges after a couple trigger pulls but my compressor is old, noisy, and just hanging on for what it can still do. This is a must tool for any DIYer.

It works great, save yourself the headache and get this tool vs manual riveter. Wish this came in an electric version that didn't cost so much but air will do and this tool above the others which i researched really worked out well for 1/4 and 3/16 rivets i used.I will say though that none of the stems ended up in the catch can, they all came out the front which is fine by me and it could be because of the angle i was using the riveter but after some lube and reading the instructions I didn't have a single jam or any issues on first use.I did notice and this could be entirely my fault for really lubing the sucker good with air oil that the exhaust port on the cylinder after pulling the handle a few times would leave a nice round streak of oil on the surface likely because of the oil that was added. Maybe too much oil but i don't mind.Regarding this model compared to others, i can't say much about the others. I went with this one because of the reviews and the advertised pulling pressure of 2434lbs compared to the cheaper Cambel version sold here on amazon which i believe is listed at 2000lbs. More than likely sufficient for the job but for an extra $30 it was worth it to me to get the Astro PR14. I purchased a swivel Bostitech adapter and it worked out well.Will update the review as I use this more often to see how well it holds out.One complaint and its a silly problem but the additional adapters screw to the base of this unit, however there is only 3 holes and 4 total adapters so they should have added an additional screw so you don't have to carry one of the adapters which can possibly get lost.By the way all my rivets are aluminum, have not used steel and likely will not so not sure how well this will do. I will say this design looks so similar to the other model I wonder if there really is a difference or these are all from the same factory with minor changes?

This air riveter made quick and easy work of assembling a 14 element yagi comprised of telescoping aluminum tubing. This made the work go very quickly.