Rivets

[Medicus matt]

I'm a little puzzled about the distinction between a rivet and a nail. As I don't think the romans had draw plates they were both cut from sheet and heads hammered onto them? I have to admit I don't know how they got nice rounded rivet heads anyway, unless they had punch tools or some like forming tool.

The difference between a rivet and a nail is that a rivet has to have it's some part of it's tail expanded to provide a permanent fixing (either by peening the buck tail on a through rivet or by expanding the body inside a blind hole).

They certainly had draw plates(there's one at Vindolanda) and the fact that some rivets are neatly domed indicates that they also had rivet setting tools similar to the one I use today for creating neatly domed rivets.