rivet gun

plural rivet guns

1. A tool used by a riveter for joining pieces of metal together with a rivet.
   1. An adjustable-impulse pneumatic hammer, fitted with a rivet set which matches the shape of the factory head of a solid rivet, used by a riveter (or gunner) to impact the factory head of that rivet (which has been heated if necessary to soften it), while a heavy bucking bar or similar is held against the bucktail of the rivet, upsetting it to form the field head.
   2. A ratchetting lever mechanism which is attached to the frangible mandrel passing through a typical blind rivet, which when pulled upsets the bucktail to form the field head of the rivet without needing access to the field-head side of the construction.