Electrical Contact Rivets

[Pawel66]

Can you buy smaller, non-industrial quantities of these rivets in the US?

All I see here is Chinese suppliers. I have sent a query to a UK based one. Cannot find too many of them, but for those I found the minimum order quantity is thousands...

I would have thought that fixing some of the relays and switches would be quite possible if I had these rivets to replace (e.g. throttle switch).

[mdsalemi]

There are a number of suppliers of these, made in the USA. The challenge is with any of this kind of small stuff is:

1) These firms don't like to sell to end-users, just manufacturers
2) Quantities are an issue.

That being said if it is a common size or stock item you may be able to get samples...

https://www.norstaninc.com/products/electrical-contact-rivets/
https://www.deringerney.com/products-and-capabilities/
https://www.clrivet.com
https://www.engineeredpartsinc.com
https://www.chicagorivet.com

That's just a sampling...remember, (though even I find it hard, and I worked in the electronic industry in the 70s and 80s) we in the USA had a robust and diverse electrical and electronic manufacturing industry long before China made anything useful in that industry...

If you can get one of these firms (or anyone else) to provide samples for you, ship them to me, I'll trans-ship to you. I didn't examine close enough, but some of them may have standard parts and if so, they may be available through a distributor. Small sample quantities are generally provided without much fuss.

[Pawel66]

Michael, thank you, let me look into this.

[wwheeler]

Another option is to resurface the flat points. There is an electrical repair shop here in town that spot welds a new point surface on the old pitted surface. They use a thin silver sheet for the material.   

I used them to repair my early style W111 window switches where the points were shot and it worked very well. Might check around to see what electrical repair shops you might have.

[Pawel66]

Need to look for someone like that too... neat idea, thank you!