Repairing a Door Latch
                         with Tubular Rivets

See also: Tube_rivet.jpg

The striker assembly on this latch had been bent inside the body.  The
cover plate had been manufactured with raised bushes that had been
swaged in final assembly.  Thus this whole assembly "is not field
serviceable".  I have always regarded that as a challenge.  So I
drilled out the swaged portion (piloted 5/16" drill) to get the
assembly apart.  Now it was simple to straighten out the bent part and
re-assemble the latch up to the point of joining the cover plate to the
barrel.

I felt that tubular rivets would be the answer but I didn't have any 
suitable ones so what to do but make them.  The steps are shown in 
Tube_rivet.jpg.

First I cut off a 3/8" length of 5/16" OD copper tube.  This could be
done with a tubing cutter but doing it in the lathe gives cleaner ends
so that's what I did.

Next I made a small flare on one end and the rivet was ready to 
install.  The rivet, shown in the upper right, was inserted with the 
flare end to what would be the outside of the latch.

I set the flared end down on my anvil (any fairly heavy flat piece of 
steel would do) and set the rivet with the rivet set shown at lower 
left.  This step also flattened the flared end against the cover plate.

I counter sunk the outer end of the rivet and installed the repaired 
latch.  Had it been necessary or desireable, I could have counter sunk 
the cover plate before rivetting and then filed the outer surface of 
the rivet flush with the cover plate.