There is always a "steel man" familiarity whenever I step onto a steel fabrication floor -- the sounds of tools, hammers, wrenches, metal cutters, all familiar from my years as a steel fabricator. It is the sound of metal being wrought by the hands of craftsmen, shaped by contemporary tools of the 21st century, tools not much different than those used in the early 20th century -- except for one, the shop riveter. Riveting building and bridge assemblies rarely occurs today, replaced by a tension control bolting system and/or electric arc welding. However, for the Longfellow Bridge in Boston/Cambridge, shop riveting has been specified as part of the rehabilitation. Longfellow Bridge, Massachusetts Department of Transportation

Thanks to Robert "Slider" Pellerin, Construction Manager for JF White-Skanska-Consigli, I had the opportunity to tour two steel fabrication shops involved in this work, replicating bridge members with a hydraulic riveter. Pellerin arranged with Patrick L. Blais (P.E. with JF White-Skanska-Consigli) for us to tour the shops where work is being done for the Longfellow Bridge Rehabilitation Project. Our first stop was at Atlantic Bridge & Engineering's fabrication shop in Candia, New Hampshire.

Stacked at one end of Atlantic's shop floor were the replicated vertical posts for the Longfellow Bridge, held together with temporary bolts for the first step in the shop riveting process. A gas forge was already fired up and ready to receive rivets to be heated to the required American Society for Testing Materials (ASTM) standard. A heated rivet is inserted in a prepared hole, and an Atlantic craftsman positions the hydraulic riveter over the rivet, the compressive force quickly forming the head. By the time the three-year rehabilitation work on the Longfellow Bridge is completed, over a hundred and fifty thousand shop rivets will have been driven at the two shops doing this work: Atlantic Bridge & Engineering and Cianbro Fabrication & Coatings.

Photos : Longfellow Bridge Rehabilitation Project

Shop riveting will be one of the themes at the 2015 Iron & Steel Preservation Workshop, featuring both the Longfellow Bridge Project and also research being done at Purdue University.

Vern Mesler

Iron & Steel Preservation Coordinator

Lansing Community College