Package of 100 5/32" (shaft) aluminum shaveable Bulb-Tite Olympic rivets ideal for vintage or modern aircraft-style travel trailer repair. They feature a modified brazier head approximately 5/16" in diameter (see chart below for all specs). Three legs open on the back to securely clamp two or more layers of aluminum together.  This is the established Airstream DIY repair rivet when you can't take inside walls out for true buck riveting.

When a riveted trailer is assembled at the factory, the inside walls are not attached until after the exterior shell is constructed. This sequence allows the factory to use solid head "buck" aircraft rivets in attaching the shell to the aluminum ribs. To install factory solid head rivets, you need to have access to the front and back of the rivet.

After the interior walls have been installed, you can no longer get to the back of the rivets used on the shell. To make repairs and replace those rivets while the interior walls are in place, the best solution is a solid head look-alike. The Olympic Bulb-Tite rivet was developed decades ago for exactly this situation. It is the only rivet on the market that looks like a solid dome head rivet when finished.

The bulb-tite is a blind rivet installed with a standard "pop" rivet tool. After installation, the head is shaved to a smooth dome to closely resembles a true solid head rivet.

To correctly finish the rivet, the mandrel (which breaks above the head of the rivet), must be snipped flush with the rivet head and then shaped with a specially designed shaver tool. When done correctly, the mandrel and very top of the head are shaved to form a solid dome. 

Olympic bulb-tite shaveable head rivets are unique. When properly finished, the heads of these blind "pop" rivets mimic the look of a solid buck rivet. There are no other rivets made that can pull off that neat trick. Because of this unique quality, they are the ideal rivet to use for quick repairs on the exterior skin of aluminum trailers. They provide a clean look that closely resembles the original rivets used by the factory. These rivets can be installed with most standard pop rivet tools after sizing the hole in your aluminum to just slightly larger than the rivet body diameter using a #20 bit.  We sell them in affordable 12-packs as our VTS-122E. 

The special shave tool for Olympic rivets (VTS-177) is required to finish to a nice domed appearance. If have just a small number of rivets to finish and want to try to avoid purchasing the shave tool, you may find a Dremel or mill file can do a decent job of smoothing the head. However, the shave tool will create a far superior finish.

Olympic rivets have historically come in a few different diameters, but the 5/32" diameter (shaft) Olympics are the best for replacing buck rivets on Airstreams because they are nearly identical in size and shape to the 1/8" brazier head rivets used originally. While Spartans and some other trailers used a slightly different head shape originally, these will look very similar and no other shapes are available.