rivets

Mike,

 

An Exacto knife with either of the chisel blades shown in the photo is the most common way of removing rivets.

 

Go slowly and use a blade angle that slices off just the rivets without digging into the surrounding plastic.

 

 

Jim

I never thought about that, even though I had a pile of xacto knifes literally in front of me as i was grinding off the rivets.

 

thanks

 

mikeg

Mike, get several of them too, I always seem to need one just when the last one I had has an edge like a carpenter's saw on it.

 

One thing I've done in the past is take a single-edge razor blade and cut it down to about the width of the smaller Xacto chisel.  I think I used the Dremel grinding disk to cut it.

 

One other thing you might try is a sanding stick, I'm thinking Micro Mark sells them but not sure.  You could always super glue a piece of fine grit sandpaper to a plastic stick and try that.

 

If all else fails have a tube of Bondo putty handy

 

I second the chisel blade.

For slicing off rivets or other body details, I file the square corners off to a small round profile so they don't inadvertently dig in.

 

The chisel blades mentioned above work well.  MicroMark also sells a chisel-shaped tool specifically designed for removing raised plastic details such as rivets and grab irons.  I have one and use it all the time...it works great!

My favorite is the s curve exacto blade chisel. I think it's a #31. It easily removed the unwanted detail with minimal damage to the plastic body.