Rivet Gun
date: label: date made
content: 1950s
label: used date
content: 1920s-Present
name: label: maker
content: Ingersoll Rand
notes: label: Description
content: This small pneumatic rivet gun was made by Ingersoll Rand during the 1950s. Rivet guns like this one were pneumatically powered by the shop’s compressed air system. and used in locomotive work for smaller rivets and for sealing boiler tube using the "shaping" swage (the swage is the small tool inserted into the business end of the gun, so that the gun can do its work). This gun was also used in welding work, often with a cutting swage to break old welds in thin steel. Additionally, a variety of different "swages" could be used to hammer home rivets with different shaped heads, to cut pieces from thin steel sheets (with a cutting swage, like a fast moving chisel), or to shape the ends of tubes and flues on the inside of boilers ("curling" the ends of tubes with a shaping swage).
label: Description
content: Part of a small array of hand tools displayed in "America On The Move" - such tools were used in the inspection and repair of steam locomotives. Light repairs on steam locomotives were usually done in roundhouses at the many small locomotive terminals throughout a railroad's system; heavy repairs were done in a large, centralized repair shop serving the whole system (often referred to as the "Back Shop").
place: label: Associated Place
content: United States: Maryland, Silver Spring
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Mechanical and Civil Engineering
label: See more items in
content: America on the Move
label: See more items in
content: Transportation
label: Exhibition
content: America On The Move
label: Exhibition Location
content: National Museum of American History
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Culp Welding and Machine Co. Silver Spring, MD
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1994.3119.04
label: nonaccession number
content: 1994.3119
label: catalog number
content: 1994.3119.04
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Rivet Gun, Welding Equipment
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 14 in x 7 in x 3 in; 35.56 cm x 17.78 cm x 7.62 cm