Workshop tips: Make your own rivnut tool
By Ellis Blackman, head cable crimper at Fibrax 
Following on from the last instalment of “Stuff your workshop should have but probably doesn’t” we have a homemade product, the Rivnut tool.
What is a Rivnut you may ask? Well, for the most part on bikes they’re used in frames where you’d mount a bottle cage, although they can be used for rack mounts and, industrially, anywhere where you’d like a nut but that you can’t get to the back of. Mounting an LED lightbar to a bumper? Use an Rivnut.
With all that said and done, CI.N’s own Editor mentioned that his bottle cage bolts were spinning on his road bike, a not uncommon occurrence, but certainly not an everyday issue. You’ll be pleased to hear this doesn’t warrant a bike shop buying the ‘correct’ tool; you can make something that works out of components you probably have knocking about in your spares tubs.
You’ll need five things:
- Bolt sized to Rivnut (m5 in the case of bottle cage bolts)
- Nut
- Washer
- External locking washer
- Rivnut
Once you’ve combined the parts as per the above picture, thread it into the rivnut, hold the bolt still and tighten the nut. Done!
