Ballard Forge on Tv | Power Hammers and Presses | Forum

Steve,
I noticed that you bucked the rivet tails flush/countersunk. Did the prints specify that? What's the advantage (or what advantage did they presume it created) by doing that vs putting on an opposing panhead on the tail? Also, I saw you doing some NDT at the end, did your equipment show any tiny stress fractures in the rivets that didn't fail completely? Shhhhh don't tell anyone that since I bought my riveting hammers i've become a rivet geek:nerd:

I bought a Gladiator from Jim as a christmas gift to myself a year and a half ago, he seems like a good guy, and the anvil is just beautiful. This is a long story, so if you don't have time, bail out, bail out!!! lol........As for the guns, it's kind of complex b/c the guy who was the sales rep for the company who sold them passed away, and I don't like speaking ill of the dead (not because they are all martyrs but I feel odd about speaking negatively about someone who can't defend himself). That being said, I bought the guns and was pretty much given the run around by company "X" (I will let people know which company if they PM me, I just don't want to put the company out there in the main post, b/c I'm well aware of how damaging posts can be). I bought the 2 rebuilt CP guns with two full sets of rivet dies, about 1500 in all. When they arrived, I hooked one up, it cycled for about five seconds, and then the valve became inoperable. It would just "push" the rivet die, without inducing a full cycle. I thought it might be a fluke, so I waited about a week to hook up the other gun (i've been swamped that last few months and just didn't have the time to mess around), and the other gun did the exact same thing. Contact the company: company says not enough air, so I hook up two 1/2" hoses and "T" them into the gun. Still nothing...........company says you have to use a 1" feeder line, then put a short "whip" line of 1/2" on the end where it meets the gun.................buy the hoses, hook them up, still nothing. So i'm exasperated at this point, and I say look the guns have to work, or I have to return them. The sales rep comes back with "you need dry air", I tell him I have an Ingersoll Rand refrigerant drier that cost me 2K, and runs bone, bone, bone dry air through my shop/factory. This gets him all flustered, and he says "clearly the air is super dirty", I reply it's filtered through three individual filters before it hits my manifold/distribution system, and we have 30 people running all different air tools at random times during the day, and none of the tools have ever failed let alone locked up right out of the box. So he says to send them back, and they will check for faulty valves, but I have to pay shipping both ways ($200). Fine, I put them in the mail. Company calls me 3 days later, and says the valves are packed with a fine grit, and thats why they wont flutter/operate. "Clearly your air is dirty" he says..........I ask him why the rest of my air tools are doing just fine, including some that we run for full ten hour shifts? He responds it's not his problem, and I will have to pay for repairs..........I say how much? He says, $140 PER GUN.............(at this point i'm becoming angry, which is relatively difficult to get me to do.........). I politely tell him no, that's just not going to happen, and oh by the way, what did you do to clean out the valves? He says, "we unscrew the main body of the gun, and drop out the valves, and pour mineral oil on them in a sink"....................I said I have a FULL SHEET METAL SHOP, SMALL MACHINE SHOP, and FULL HEAT TREAT SHOP, why in the hell would you have me mail the two guns halfway across the nation to just pour mineral oil on them? Why wouldn't you tell me to try that at MY shop? His response "we don't make money by giving advice on how to repair our tools". I then ask, how much is it to refund my money for the tools (I was going to keep the dies), and I knew there would be a restocking fee, so how much is the restocking fee.............he says "$140 per gun" with a cute tone in his voice.......So I say ahhhhhhhhhhhh, so no matter what I do, you are charging me $280, and holding the guns hostage..........he says "basically, yeah". Well that response gets my goat, and I ask to speak to the president, b/c i'm livid at this point...............so a gentleman gets on the phone, and I briefly describe my predicament to him, and I ask him what we can do to rectify the situation...........and he replies "I'm fully aware of the situation, and I personally approved them billing you the $480 including shipping for pouring the mineral oil into the valves".........................................................................................so at that point......literally I was incandescent, and politely said I have to hang up the phone before I say something I will deeply regret. Hung up after he said goodbye, and cooled off for a day, and wrote them an email saying that I thought they made quality rivet dies, but I would never ever ever ever buy a tool from them again, and told them that I was just boiling with how they treat their clients. I received an email back a day later saying that they would charge me $40 dollars to clean both guns, and they "assumed" that I would want to return them. I told them I would pay the $40, pay the shipping, and I want this compeletely done, just drop the guns into the mail.................Get the guns back, and what do you know? They work just like they should have when I bought them.........................using the same air line, same fittings..........same everything. In short, they mailed me guns that weren't working the first time, and then charged me a bunch to "fix" a problem that was there before I bought them. All in all, a pretty shitty experience. The three things I learned were, it helps to have a big feeder line, oil the shit out of them, and don't buy tools from company "X". By the way, the Jet 90lb rivet gun that I bought from a random guy............worked great right out of the box.:furious: