Can Rivet Nuts Be Installed By Hand? Rivet Nuts
It’s a question we get more often than you might think here at our rivet nut supply—new clients, especially those just dipping their toes into fastener assembly, walk into our warehouse, run their fingers over a box of stainless steel rivet nuts, and ask if they really need a pneumatic installation tool. They’ve got a small prototype line, or a one-off job, or they’re working on a tight budget and want to skip the cost of power tools. “Can’t I just squeeze these into place with a pair of pliers?” one guy asked me last week, holding a M6 aluminum rivet nut like it was a soda can.
Before I break down the science of hand installation, let’s get clear on what a rivet nut actually is. Unlike a standard bolt or a self-tapping screw, a rivet nut (sometimes called a blind nut or rivnut) is a internally threaded fastener designed to be installed into a thin workpiece—think sheet metal, plastic, or composite panels where you can’t tap a thread directly. It has a flanged head on one side and a hollow, splined body on the other. When you install it, you pull a mandril through the center of the rivet nut, expanding the body against the back of the workpiece, creating a secure, thread-ready joint that can hold torque, vibration, and repeated assembly and disassembly. That expansion is the critical part—and that’s why hand installation is both possible and limited, depending on the type of rivet nut, the material of the workpiece, and the load you’re expecting from the joint.
Let’s start with the types of rivet nuts that work for hand installation. Not all rivet nuts are made equal, and the ones that respond best to hand force are the smaller, lighter-duty variants. For example, our M3, M4, and even small M5 carbon steel or stainless steel rivet nuts—those with a shank diameter under 6mm—can often be set by hand using a rivet nut tool, but wait, not just any tool. A proper hand rivet nut tool is a handheld, plier-style device with two jaws: one that grips the rivet nut’s outer flange, and another that pulls the internal mandril. When you squeeze the handles, it creates mechanical advantage to pull the mandril just enough to expand the rivet nut’s body into the workpiece. I’ve seen our technicians set dozens of M4 rivet nuts into 1mm aluminum sheet by hand in 90 seconds flat, no power required.
But what about using just a pair of standard pliers? That’s a trick some hobbyists and small assemblers try, and it almost never works right. The problem is that standard pliers don’t apply even pressure. You’ll either crush the thin rivet nut body before the mandril expands, or you’ll pull the mandril right out of the rivet nut without expanding anything at all. I had a homeowner come to us a few months ago with a pile of mangled M6 rivet nuts he’d tried to set by squeezing them with channel locks for his backyard swing set brackets. “They just spin in the metal,” he said, and he was right—without that controlled pull on the mandril, the rivet nut never forms a mechanical underlock, so it just turns when you thread a bolt into it. So if you’re going to install by hand, invest in a $10 to $15 hand rivet nut tool—not a pair of pliers.
Now, here’s the part that gets overlooked: hand installation only works for low-load, low-cycle applications. Let’s define what that means. A low-load application is something where the joint doesn’t see high shear or torque forces. For example, installing M3 rivet nuts into the thin plastic back of a laptop case to hold a small panel—no more than 5 N·m of torque, maybe. Or M4 rivet nuts into 1.5mm steel for a small cabinet door hinge, holding up a few pounds. If your joint is holding a car door panel, a lawn mower handle, or a medical device that will see repeated vibration, hand-installed rivet nuts aren’t reliable enough. The reason comes down to the expansion: when you use a hand tool, the amount of force you apply is limited by human strength. A pneumatic tool can exert 500 to 1,000 pounds of pull force on the mandril, expanding the rivet nut’s body enough to create a 360-degree underlock against the workpiece. A hand tool, by contrast, maxes out at about 150 to 200 pounds of force for small rivet nuts. That means on larger M8 or M10 rivet nuts, hand installation isn’t just unreliable—it’s impossible. You can pull on the mandril all day with a hand tool and never get enough expansion to hold. We sell more M8 and above rivet nuts with pneumatic tool recommendations than with any other, because their load capacity requires that extra expansion.
I tested this myself a couple of years ago. We had a client who builds custom RVs wanted to install M6 rivet nuts into 2mm aluminum for interior cabinet doors, and he swore he could do it by hand to save time on his small shop line. We gave him a hand tool, and he set the first five without issue. But when he did a torque test on the bolts he threaded in, the first one came loose at 12 N·m. We ran the same test on the same rivet nuts installed with a pneumatic tool, and they held 22 N·m before the strip. The difference? That extra pull force expands the rivet nut’s splines deeper into the workpiece, creating a much stronger lock that resists torque and vibration. Hand-installed rivet nuts work for low torque, but they’re not for critical joints.
Another factor that matters is the workpiece material and thickness. If you’re installing rivet nuts into soft, thin materials like 0.8mm aluminum or 1mm plastic, hand installation works well because you don’t need a huge expansion to create a secure joint. But if you’re working with thicker, harder materials—like 3mm steel or composite panels—you need that extra force from a pneumatic or hydraulic tool to deform the rivet nut’s body enough to lock in. Hand force just isn’t enough to expand a rivet nut properly against a hard, thick workpiece. We had a prototype engineer call us last quarter panicking because his team had hand-installed M5 rivet nuts into 3mm carbon steel for a drone mount, and the whole assembly failed during drop testing. The rivet nuts had expanded just enough to grab the steel, but not enough to create a reliable lock, so they pulled out mid-flight. That’s a costly mistake that could have been avoided with the right installation tool.
There are exceptions, of course. Some specialty rivet nuts are designed specifically for hand installation. For example, our push rivet nuts—sometimes called spring rivet nuts—have a slightly different design: instead of expanding a body, they have a spring-loaded sleeve that snaps into place when you push them into a drilled hole. Those can literally be installed by hand, no tool at all. You drill a hole the same size as the rivet nut’s outer diameter, push the rivet nut into the hole, and the spring spreads the sleeves on the inside to hold it. Those are perfect for quick, low-load applications like attaching name tags to metal boxes or mounting small signs. But even then, they’re not for high-load jobs. I’ve also seen some large diameter rivet nuts (up to M12) that can be installed with a hand tool, but only if you use a long-handled rivet nut tool to get more mechanical advantage. Even then, we still recommend a pneumatic tool for large diameters because the required expansion force is too high for most people to generate by hand consistently.
Now, let’s talk about common myths around hand installation. I hear all the time that “hand installation is just as strong as power tools if you do it right.” That’s not true—at least not for standard rivet nuts. The strength of a rivet joint depends on the amount of undercut created by expanding the rivet nut against the workpiece. The more force you apply to pull the mandril, the deeper the undercut, and the stronger the joint. A 2019 study from the Fastener Technology Association (FTA) tested 100 identical M6 rivet nuts installed by hand, pneumatic tool, and hydraulic tool. The hand-installed rivet nuts had an average pull-out strength of 220 pounds, while pneumatic-installed ones had 380 pounds and hydraulic ones had 450 pounds. That’s a huge difference—enough to make or break a joint in many applications. The study also found that hand-installed rivet nuts had a 12% failure rate during torque testing, compared to just 2% for pneumatic-installed ones. So while hand installation works, it’s not equivalent to power tool installation.
Another myth: “If you use a big enough hand tool, you can install any rivet nut by hand.” Again, not exactly. A hand tool’s mechanical advantage is limited. A standard hand rivet nut tool has a ratio of about 10:1, meaning for every pound of force you squeeze on the handles, you get 10 pounds of pull on the mandril. The strongest hand tools on the market top out at around 20:1, but even that only gives you 200 pounds of pull force from a 10-pound squeeze on the handles. A pneumatic tool, by contrast, can generate 1,000+ pounds of pull force with the pull of a trigger. So for rivet nuts that need 500 pounds or more to expand properly—like M8 and above in steel—hand tools can’t generate enough force, no matter how hard you squeeze.
So when is hand installation a good choice? Let’s sum that up: small rivet nuts (M3 to M5), thin workpieces (0.8mm to 1.5mm), low-load applications (under 15 N·m of torque, no heavy vibration), and one-off jobs or small prototype runs. If that’s your scenario, hand installation works, and it’s a great way to save time and money without sacrificing performance—if you use the right tool. The key is to not skip the handheld rivet nut tool; pliers will just damage the fastener and create an unreliable joint. If you’re installing for commercial production, high-load applications, or critical joints, that’s when you’ll want to invest in a pneumatic or hydraulic tool—they’re worth the cost for the consistency and strength they provide.
Here at our rivet nut supply, we work with all kinds of customers: hobbyists building custom furniture, aerospace engineers prototyping satellite components, RV manufacturers assembling commercial fleets. We always tell them the same thing: match the installation method to the application, not the other way around. If hand installation works for your needs, great—we’ve got the tools and rivet nuts to make it happen. If you need something stronger for production, we can help you pick the right power tool and the right fastener to get the job done right.
If you’re not sure which installation method is right for your project, or you need guidance picking the right rivet nut and tool, we’re here to help. Reach out to our team to discuss your application, test your prototype, or order sample kits to try hand installation for yourself.
Long Hexagon Nuts References
Fastener Technology Association. (2019). Rivet Nut Installation Methods: Strength and Reliability Testing. FTA Technical Report Series.
Industrial Fasteners Institute. (2021). Handbook of Blind Fastener Installation: Best Practices for Assembly. IFI Press.
Sensors and Actuators Manufacturing Division. (2020). Small-Format Blind Fasteners for Consumer Electronics: Installation Guidelines. IEEE Transactions on Components and Packaging Technologies.
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