Originally Posted by
tony colegrave
It may be of interest to some to note that, in very late 1950s or early 1960s (soon after the Company was acquired by Raleigh Industries), Brooks introduced tubular brass rivets (nickel plated) to some (at least) of their B.15 range of 'second tier' sports saddles (esp. Swallows, in my experience) in place of the regular tubular steel ones.
However, brass proved too brittle for the purpose and was soon abandoned.
Interesting! The 100 brass rivet were only $6, and it's given me something to practice with. At the moment I have a bit more confidence to order the $2 per piece copper rivets from Brooks. I am a bit frustrated there seems to be no other source for similar copper rivets to the Brooks rivets. Even after extensive googling and a visit to the local TANDY leather shop. And a visit to a couple of local shoe repair places (cobbler).
https://www.brooksengland.com/en_us/...a-byb-277.html
- - - - -
PS: I did find I could flatten out the sharp round edges a bit by using a larger punch clamped in a vice and hitting the rivet harder. I was thinking of pre-bending the edges, but I found that difficult to do without introducing burrs to the edges of the rivet.