Removing data-plate rivets...

​Used a lot of different methods over the years, to remove those little rivets/drive-screws used to attach data plates, and finally decided I'd try this one.


I've been wanting to do this for a while, making a set of "flush grab" pliers specifically for these little data-plate rivets, so knowing I was going to be playing with the Hardinge motor this weekend, I found a set of good quality linesman's pliers at the secondhand store.

The cutting edges had been damaged by someone trying to cut hard wire or nails or something, and they only cost $1.98 from the bin at the store.

Some rivets are hardened, and I can see chipping or denting the edges at some point. But there's enough meat to grind 'em again a couple times, and if they ever wear out completely, a few bucks and an hour or two of work again...

Let me know what you think.

Doc.​

Are you referring to "drive screws"?

They can be pesky. And end cutting pliers really is the best tool. You can buy them if making one gets tedious.

No, I mean rivets.

You know them as 'drive screws', I know them as 'drive screws'- and said as much in my first line, above- but nine out of ten readers will know exactly what you're referring to if you call them "rivets".

Doc.

I always heard, and used, the term drive rivet but a quick search on mcmasters site finds them called screw nails....
Those pliers look like just the thing to grip them little buggers.

Have y'all heard of the ''softening drive screws with a stick welder'' trick?

Limy Sami said:

Have y'all heard of the ''softening drive screws with a stick welder'' trick?

Click to expand...

-I once had good success, with slightly larger such screws, using an automotive "stud welder" used for bodywork, to stick a stud to the rivet and pop it out with the appropriate slide hammer.

Later I tried it on a smaller one and it exploded. (It may have also been brass, come to think of it.)

Doc.

As the late John Stevenson would have said:- "Clumsy Bastard".

I'd probably start with a pair of pincers because there would be less modification needed and because I've got more of them than I use.

Take a fender washer and tape it like so, and then grind a slot across the drive pin with a Dremel, and a cut off wheel.

Then back the drive pin out with a screw driver


The washer protects the plate, and helps grind a good slot for the screw driver,

My local fastener store calls them "U Drive" screws.

I have removed many plates from machinery. Dealer name tags, operating instruction, speed and feed/thread charts and just about everything else attached with them. I have a few cheap screw drivers sharpened to a knife edge, few have a small grove to allow the edge to fit around the DS. I start by putting the sharpened screw driver as close to the drive screw as possible but on the edge of the plate being attached, as the blade goes under the plate if puts pressure on the drive screw and in most cases will begin to back out. When the blade reaches the drive screw its under the head and often the DS has backed out enough it can be gripped with pliers and twisted out. Sometimes more pressure with the notched blade is required or the blade inserted at diffrent angles around the DS. I have been able to remove about 99% of the drive screws this way. After doing what ever reason the DS were removed like painting I use the same DS back in the holes with help of Loctite. On occasion the head breaks off, often the plate can be moved slightly so another group of holes can be drilled and the plate will cover all the holes. If not a little epoxy will cover the holes then painted over. I have a box of every size DS purchased from McMaster when ever that happens or on a few occasion the DS popped out and went sailing, never to be found on the shop floor.

I would like to see photos prying those things out without damaging the brass plates, yes, that is a must see!

donie said:

I would like to see photos prying those things out without damaging the brass plates, yes, that is a must see!

Click to expand...

OK next plate I remove I'll make photos, not all are brass, some are steel others aluminum. I just removed all the plates of my Hendey head stock getting ready to work on it but it's a running lathe. I might find a few on the quick change. I just did a P&W lathe, removed every plate then painted it.

First thing is check the back side of the plate. Many are through drilled and if you can get a small punch behind it you can just tap them out. (I'm writing this for the guys who haven't done many, not for most of you.)
The pliers are a good idea but I'd be worried about scuffing the plate.
I use a Foredom tool to cut a slot then back them out.
I still nick a few but I like Donie's idea with the washer.

maynah said:

First thing is check the back side of the plate. Many are through drilled and if you can get a small punch behind it you can just tap them out. (I'm writing this for the guys who haven't done many, not for most of you.)
The pliers are a good idea but I'd be worried about scuffing the plate.
I use a Foredom tool to cut a slot then back them out.
I still nick a few but I like Donie's idea with the washer.

Click to expand...

and if there not drilled sometimes you can drill them from the back side and knock the pins out

I have carved out the remains of WAY too many of those little tiny bastards, using an air pencil, and scrounged up dental burrs (got a baggie of new old stock that the Dentist no longer used, free for the asking!).

Getting a plate off without leaving obvious marks is a real challenge!

I have a few plates I removed as per my post and a few I removed and replaced. I have fixed quite a few that the paint was removed by wear. I removed the thread chart from my P&W New model C but if I recall it was held on with screws, I'm thinking of having another made, thick plate but something like an air hose rubbing on it kinda wore off the numbering. Maybe I can find one to remove on my Hendey or the L&S I'm working on. My desire is to remove the plate in a way that the plate can be replaced and not look like it was removed at all. I'm fond of making the machine look good and don't want the plate to look like it was removed with a hatchet!

guess I am just dumb- I always just tap em with a center punch, drill a little hole, and back em out with an easy out. Works every time, just slow. no danger of scratching a fancy antique name plate.
I am pretty patient though. Learned that fixing a lot of classic american cars from the sixties, which had rusted on parts that wore out every 10,000 miles.

I picked up the taping a fender washer on the old woodworking machine site. I also picked up the acetone/atf, and a brass brush for removing rust there also.
The war finish Brown & Sharpe mill I have, used screws for the plates, nice touch there, the other machines have the drive pins.
One of the wood working machine restorers described like this,
The fender washer not only protects the plate, when grinding the slot, the washer works as a guide to get a sharp sided slot that a screw driver will get a good bite,
When the slot is formed, give the screw driver a good smack with a hammer, that will loosen it, and then it will back out. Or, you will have to drill it out.

In the dozen or so machines I've rebuilt in the last few years, I've tried very nearly every trick mentioned in this thread. Some have worked, some haven't. Some worked well on one job, but failed badly at another. Every machine is different.

The rivets in this Hardinge, for example, were plain brass nails. No spiral cut, and with a thick-ish head that allowed grasping by these pliers.

The drive screws in my Warner-Swasey, however, were in fact actually drive screws, and very hard- too hard to drill with a conventional bit. I tried slotting the head with a Dremel, and twisting it out, and the head simply cracked off. I tried getting under the edge with a chisel, and simply chipped the blade for my trouble.

I even tried tack-welding a strip to it- drilling a hole of about the head size into a strap of steel, and popping it with a tack weld from a MIG. It's worked on some, but this time, all I managed to do was crack the head off again.

Even once the plates were off, and a short stub of shank was exposed (the W&S plates are cast) a good firm grip with Vise-Grips just succeeded in cracking the rest of it off.

I was forced to drill them out, both with carbide and with diamond burrs in a Dremel. I then had to plug the holes with bits of cast I turned and threaded, and redrilled for a 4-40 screw hole.

On other machines, I've been able to get at them with sharp side cutters, or to lift them with the edge of a chisel or 'unscrew', but again, no trick works all the time, on all rivets. And rare is the time I've been able to tap them out from the back.

I don't say that pliers like this are the Ultimate Tool, it's simply one more trick in the arsenal to use. Sometimes it'll work, sometimes it won't.

Doc.

DocsMachine said:

...but again, no trick works all the time, on all rivets. And rare is the time I've been able to tap them out from the back.

I don't say that pliers like this are the Ultimate Tool, it's simply one more trick in the arsenal to use. Sometimes it'll work, sometimes it won't.

Click to expand...

Wise observation. Honestly earned. The hard way. Thanks for coalescing it into one place and sharing. No, there is no "one true and magical way".

I admit to a serious case of sloth. Also "earned the hard way".

I learnt to:

- sand adjacent.

- butter-fillet the edges of plates with body surfacer paste.

- hand paint of choice smoothly up to the edge cleanly.

- fill in their own dings and refresh filler colours by hand.

ALL of it "in situ". On the machine.

Bluntly.. even if briefly hunched-over at low-altitude and risking sore knees, neck-strain and back and leg cramps cussing and swearing with a tiny artist brush and a wooden toothpick to fix up a plate?

It was just way less work and ultimately way faster to not remove them and have to put them back AT ALL.

Do I get demerits because the paint under them is mismatched and ugly?
I don't even know myself that it is or is not.

Whom do you know who is likely to ever X-Ray or CAT-scan the buggers?

Clean edge, no raggedy gaps, no flakes, ledges, nor sloppy overpaint?

"Good enough". At least.

Meats and seafood have a place in my freezers. Machinery has to live in the outside world.

Soon as any given machine-tool is put back to work?
ANY coating applied starts taking hits and damage.