Riveting

Pop-rivets, and a rivet gun for deploying them. The skinny end of the rivet is inserted through holes drilled in the pieces to be riveted, and is then grasped by the rivet gun. The user then repeatedly pumps on the handles of the gun. This pulls the face of the gun against the fat end of the rivet, putting mechanical tension on the rivet, and deforming the other end of the rivet, so it won't come out.

Riveting is a techique used to fasten together metal plates, or metal structural members, with one, or several, metal rods. Once the rod has been inserted to connect the elements, one or both ends are mechanically deformed.

Ships, and aircraft, used to use rivets to fasten the plates that form their outer skins. Some ships and aircraft still rely on rivets, but welding plates has the advantage of leaving those surfaces more streamlined. In addition, there is a small weight advantage to using welding.

Smaller rivets can have their head deformed mechanically, by using a mechanical rivet gun, that uses leverage to deform the end of the rivet.

Workers fastening material with larger rivets use rivet heated red hot, so they are ductile, then use powerful hammers to splay out the end of the rivet. Since heat made the rivet expand, when it was inserted, it will squeeze the joint as it cools.

Traditional blue jeans employed rivets to secure the vertices where multiple panels of fragment joined, and were under particularly strong stress.

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  Metal plates, fastened by multiple rivets
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  Rivets fasten the links together in a chain link drive.
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  A worker uses an automatic hammer to pound on, and deform the end of white hot rivet.