My cheap and lazy rivets Tutorial

So every scratch builder has their own way of doing things, and all work differently. My take on these is below, and my results are here and the easiest process to do them quickly too.

So I had a batch of stuff scratchbuilt and wanted the ability to make them have some texture, without always relying on material like PVA/greenstuff/Modelling clays etc to do so.


Enter Rivets
I myself have searched and seen various different techniques for those elusive perfect circles. I've used all the below. 
Chopped plasticard rod and Drilled holes

Chopped Greenstuff (see belt)

I've tried Stamped holes. 

Courtesy of Riks Railways 

Air Cartridge filter bobbles

PVA dots (not shown)
The only one I've not tried is the custom rivet blocks (which look pricey)

So, this is what I've settled on as the best:
- Value for money
- Lowest effort
- Quickest to apply in bulk
- Best look for all of the above reasons.

1mm Half round Pearl beads

These look the part and are easy to apply 

Here are a bunch of (wobbly) shots with me using these half beads. 

Basically 1000 for 1.50 is really decent value for money. 

I was also able to apply 800 of these things (I estimated) in about 4 hours. Here's my cheat sheet

1. Get a dish, tip some into it.
2. Shake the dish so the bead have their dome side facing upwards
3. Get a paperclip and unfold, add a blob of blue tack to one end, so that you can pick the beads up.
4. Dab one end of the paperclip in a some PVA and apply dot of PVA to model surface
5. Flip paperclip and pick bead up by its domed head.
6. Apply bead and 799 more.

I dotted the PVA about 20 times and then did the bead(s) but do whatever suits you really!