4 Best Ways to Remove Rivets Without a Rivet Tool

Rivets are a fastener that's commonly used for fastening together metal parts. In all likelihood, you came across one or more that need to be removed but don't own a fancy tool for removing rivets.

In this Instructable I'll show you the fastest ways you can remove any type of rivet without a rivet removal tool. These four methods are the ones I use regularly when taking apart devices for scavenging parts. If you've come up with effective methods of your own, please share them in the comments below.

Don't want to read through the Instructable? Watch my 2-minute video instead.

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Step 1: Drilling

In most cases, the fastest way to remove a rivet is by drilling it with my cordless drill. With a sharp drill bit, the rivet head turns into beautiful aluminum swirls in no time.

If your drill bit is dull or is unable to drill due to a protruding leftover mandrel (center part of the rivet), try hitting it with a center punch (use a nail if you don't have one) or start with a small drill bit. This allows the tip of a larger drill bit to sink in just enough for the cutting edges to do work properly.

In many instances, the surface of a rivet is not flat or concave so the drill bit cannot engage (often the case with peened solid rivets), or the rivet itself is loose so it spins with the drill bit, or you simply don't have access to it with a drill (watch the video to see three examples of these occurrences). The next three methods work for tackling these challenging rivets.

Step 2: Grinding

One way to remove problematic rivets is by grinding them off. To do this I use my Foredom flex shaft rotary tool with a fiberglass-reinforced cutting disc. I've also used carbide burrs for certain rivets since they can grind off steel just as well without producing sparks or abrasive dust.

For larger solid rivets I recommend using an angle grinder since it's much faster than any other tool.

Step 3: Wire Cutters

Classic diagonal wire cutters can't cut rivets because the cutting edge isn't flush with their flat side (due to an additional bevel), but flush-cutting snips work well for cutting small aluminum rivets. I've found these to be especially useful on the smallest hollow aluminum rivets. These snips break occasionally but are cheap to replace.

Step 4: Chiseling

I don't have cold chisels which are used for cutting steel, so I found an old woodworking chisel and used a flex shaft rotary tool to sharpen it to a blunt angle - or perhaps you may say I dulled it, depending on your perspective. I used my rotary tool to do this. Keep in mind, the sharper the angle, the more effective it will be, but the faster it will dull.

I tried this for the first time as an experiment in a previous instructable, Top 10 Ways to Cut Metal Without an Angle Grinder (see for more information), where I tried using it to cut steel. It worked surprisingly well for thicker steel, so I figured it would work for rivets are well. After a few blows with a hammer, any rivet that isn't solid falls apart and I find this quite satisfying to do.

If you don't have a chisel, try modifying a flat screwdriver, it should work just as well. Just be careful not to overheat the chisel to not anneal the steel.

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