Pt#320 Premier 701 & 751 Vibraphone Note Peg

The Premier’s 701 and 751 model vibraphones have tubular note rails into which these little pressings are riveted.  It is very common for them to work loose and not uncommon for them to break off entirely.  If left loose, as they move around they can damage the thin walled tube of the rail thus enlarging the hole.  Most of the time however the holes get enlarged because the wrong sized drill bit is used when repairing them – very disappointing.

Premier used sealed rivets, presumably for health and safety reasons since the cap sealing the rivet prevents the mandrel from falling out and landing on the floor.  Whatever the reasoning, the result is lots of little rattles all over the instrument!  Therefore my advice is to take every opportunity to replace these sealed rivets with the more conventional design that enables the mandrel to be easily removed after assembly.

Below the note pegs are the two most common options for the pop rivets that I use.  The smooth rivet at the top is a standard rivet if the holes are still good, whereas the rivet below is an expansion rivet to deal with enlarged holes.  Also available is the correct sized drill bit for this size rivet.

A pneumatic rivet gun is my tool of choice because you just need to pull the trigger, but obviously you need an air compressor to power them.  Personally I struggle with those standard rivet guns that are about 10″ long, they are fine for small rivets but you need forearms like Popeye for this size.  Lazy tongs are an option and extended arm rivetters would also work, but I took so many chunks out of my knuckles replacing these note pegs as I failed to control the manual rivet guns that having a pneumatic gun was imperative for my own workshop!