It so happens that there is a need to connect two parts from plexiglass, plywood, PCB, cardboard, etc. It would be nice to use glue here, but the one you need is never at hand; stitching parts is ridiculous; you cannot use nails and metal rivets, since these parts are easy to split. Try to do so in this case. Surely in the house there is an empty rod, case or cap from a ballpoint pen, a cocktail straw, knitting plastic knitting needles or hooks. I sometimes “borrow” the latter from my grandmother, however, at the same time I bring a kitten, which my grandmother usually blames for their loss.
Out of all these seemingly nothing in common things, excellent rivets are obtained that do not need to be riveted with a hammer. They provide sufficient strength for the connection of parts, they are easy to manufacture, they are waterproof, dielectric, and do not rust. If rivets of small diameter are needed, the best material for them will again be plastic pens from ballpoint pens, straws for cocktails, knitting needles and hooks. For more powerful rivets, ballpoint pen housings, caps from them, nylon shells of thick wires and cables are good (the shells are easily removed from the wires in small pieces).
To make a rivet, I take a metal dowel (or a thick nail well sharpened on a cone), lightly heat it on a gas burner, immerse its hot end in oil or a piece of fat so that the plastic does not stick to it, and then expand the end of the shaft (Fig. 6, a). And so that the rivet head is beautiful and neat, I still press the flared end that has not yet cooled down to the surface of the plate or a piece of window glass (Fig. 6, b).
If the rivet is made of a plastic knitting needle (or hook), then gently warm its end on the burner and, pressing it against the same plate or glass, form the head gently. After that, measure out the rivet of the desired length and cut it with a file or scissors. Inserted into the holes prepared in the parts to be joined, a rivet from a hollow rod from a ballpoint pen is expanded with the same dowel, the rivet head from solid rods is formed with a hot soldering iron (Fig. 7).
The above cores and straws will help us and in some other ways. It is well known that it is not recommended to stock up the pens for ballpoint pens, since in hot time the paste is squeezed out through the writing unit and the ball is tightly “brewed”.Therefore, in order to preserve the working properties of the rod with the paste for a longer time, I select an empty rod so that it is tightly put on either the nipple with the ball, or on the base of the nipple, or even on the rod itself. At the rod put on the nipple, I cut off the excess, and I weld the remaining end with a hot nail. It turns out a sealed cap (Fig. 8, a). On the reverse side, I insert a match or plasticine cork into the open end of the rod with paste for the same purpose, which, when I put the rod in the fountain pen, I remove it (you can leave a plug, but then you will have to pierce a hole in the rod below the plug with a hot needle).
Another profession of a similar core. If you put it on the edge of the awl, the latter stops digging into your finger when you shove your hand in the tool box, and even in the dark (Fig. 8, b).
I also use rods as insulators when splicing electrical wiring (Fig. 8, c). If you first put on a piece of a rod of the corresponding diameter on one of them, and after soldering push it on the solder, you do not need any electrical tape. To prevent such a "dressing" from sliding, it is enough to apply dropwise any waterproof glue to the ends of the rod, for example Mars, Moment, Kontaktol No. 88, Phoenix and others. This insulation is especially convenient with hidden wiring. These are the rods that you scornfully throw away.