Okay, they are also offering 2.8x25mm copper nails. Which I actually do have a single one here. :-)

My hardware collection also includes a few brass-like looking screws that I could repurpose into rivets. But I reckon I have to upgrade my burner first. I'm not a metal worker by any means, so I could be totally wrong, but I imagine that some heat is necessary to loosen the work-hardening effect when beating on them. I will do some experiments on Saturday and report back.

I experimented with a 2.4x7mm aluminium rivet I had on hand. As expected, it was quite a bit long. Using my pliers wrench, I was able to crush it down by quite some bit. I should have taken a photo right after the hand riveter for comparison. Now, it's much smoother and the chance of cutting my hand open is reduced by quite a bit. But breaking the burr with a few file strokes is still necessary. I should get 2.4x4mm rivets and try with them. I reckon they would be more suited for my 0.5mm sheet metal.

With the pliers wrench again, I was able to also crush down the chopped off 3mm copper nail and form a second head. That was surprisingly easy. Now, I need to figure out how to efficiently make a head on the remaining copper nail shaft, so that I can use this again.

Both are rock solid, there's absolutely no movement at all between the two sheet metal cutoffs.

https://lyse.isobeef.org/tmp/nietenexperiment/

@lyse Great job!

I suggested it because I did it in the past, but never used it on bigger works.

In my case I did it exclusively on really small projects and used a thin rubber head hammer to prevent deforming the metal.