Riveting plastic

Adding the rivets tot he Garratt bunker seems, to me, to be a job easier carried out in plasticard than metal. I could cut little bits of brass shim , rivet them and fit in place but I think some of the blending around corners will be easier if I have a solvent to hand to smooth things out. Putting bumps in thin strips only results in mangled metal and bad language anyway.

So, all I need is to form rivets in the plastic. In theory this is possible using my rivet tool so I stick various thicknesses under and have a go. The 0.7mm stuff forms nice little domes with only a touch of adjustment to "bompiness" of the tool. Sadly it's far too thick for the thin sheet I need to represent.

0.4mm seems best but it's a lot more fragile. To be honest this sheet feels a bit brittle and has probably been kicking around for a few years. Tool adjustment is a lot more critical as it's very easy to punch through the thin material. Ideally I'd alter the punch to be less pointed but I don't have an spares, or the ability to make one with a perfectly centred point.

Anyway, now I think I have to find a way to make long thin strips of rivets to go around the bunker edge. If I manage this then the bunker detailing will be easy. Probably.