Definition
A handheld pneumatic tool used in aircraft sheet metal work to drive solid rivets. The tool delivers a rapid series of hammer-like blows to the manufactured head of a rivet while a bucking bar is held against the opposite end, forming the shop head and securing the joint.
Plain English
A small air-powered hammer that pounds rivets into place. One person uses the gun on one side of the metal while another person holds a heavy steel bar on the other side to flatten the rivet's tail.
Context Anchor
Seen in aircraft maintenance and sheet-metal repair, especially when installing or replacing solid rivets on an airframe.
Derivation
Rivet comes from an old French word meaning to fasten or fix. Gun originally meant a weapon, but it later also came to mean a hand tool that sends out force or repeated blows. In this term, gun means a powered driving tool, not a firearm.
Why Pilots Care
Pilots rarely operate a rivet gun, but understanding the term helps when reading maintenance records, discussing structural repairs with a mechanic, or inspecting work done on the airframe.
Analogy
A rivet gun is like a very controlled air-powered hammer made for one job: striking the rivet evenly while another tool supports the other side.
Intuition Check
Do not assume a rivet gun shoots rivets into the aircraft like a nail gun. In aircraft work, the rivet is already placed in a hole, and the rivet gun strikes it to form a tight fastener.
Example Sentence 1
The mechanic used a rivet gun to install new rivets along the repaired wing skin.
Example Sentence 2
A properly adjusted rivet gun forms a clean shop head without cracking the surrounding aluminum.