Hinge Rivets

After Jim's suggestions to make my own tool box I started looking at low volume (as in physical space) methods of creating all the pivot points. The actual hinges of the box lids may need to be actual hinges.  I'm not sure I have the ability with the tools I currently own to make slip rolled hinges from the sheet metal.  They would need to be rolled quite small.  I do have a spot welder so it might be a good place to look into learning to use it.
My big concern is the smooth tight pivoting of the tray links.  A pop rivet might not work for a couple reasons.  First is that it would clamp the link to the tray, and the send is that even the shortest pop rivet sticks into the space beyond a noticeable amount.  I got to wonder if there was a rivet that is designed to leave a fixed space between the flange and the mushroom.  To be used obviously as a pivot pin instead of a corby bolt, a machine screw, or other intrusive pivot pin.  It turns out there is a thing called a hinge rivet.  One vendor sells a 20 pack of them for 56 cents.  Quality unknown.  I've never used one and various searches including YouTube for using them resulted in guides and tutorials on riveting hinges.  Not hinge rivets.
I thought about it little bit, and something like an eyelet tool with a fixed depth stop could probably be used/made to install them.  Perhaps as a plier or compound plier tool.  I suppose a parallel compound plier tool would be ideal.  This way they could be set to whatever thickness clearance was needed so the pivot could move freely, but not to freely.
On further thought I figured such hinge rivets could be made on the lathe, or possible even just out of plane tube.  Even ordinary open end pop rivets might work if removed from the mandrel.  Of course if the bag of 20 for 56¢ is any good there is no need to make them for relatively med/light weight applications like the link pivots on the trays of a hip roof box.
Yes, Jim, I am thinking out loud to help get the job defined, but also I am open to suggestions from anybody who has already done any part of this type of work.
P.S.  I do have a 48inch Tennsmith box brake, a smaller 30inch bench top brake, and even a smaller magnetic mounted vise brake for mangling sheet metal.  The last sheet metal job I did was making a stove cubby surround out of stainless sheet.  It turned out well enough for a relatively simple job, and provides a heat shield for the spice cabinets my wife laid out that come out half way along the sides of the stove between the upper and lower cabinets.  Yeah, I was not crazy about a fuel source int eh same area as some future potential grease fire.  The stainless looks good and provides shield hopefully long enough for a fire extinguisher to do its job.  Of course no distance or angle was quite the same, parallel, or perpendicular, so the sheet metal shall had to be custom bent to fit...
P.P.S.  I found and bought a couple cheap used hiproof boxes to use to help figure out the geometry rather than figure it all out from scratch.   Hopefully the geometry scales well.  I can always resell the boxes. Maybe fill them up with garbage tools and make somebody think they got a deal.
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Bob La Londe
CNC Molds N Stuff
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