All the metal pieces of the tower are held together by rivets, a well-refined method of construction at the time the Tower was constructed.


The rivet workers
First the pieces were assembled in the factory using bolts, later to be replaced one by one with thermally assembled rivets, which contracted during cooling thus ensuring a very tight fit.
A team of four men was needed for each rivet assembled: one to heat it up, another to hold it in place, a third to shape the head and a fourth to beat it with a sledgehammer. Only a third of the 2,500,000 rivets used in the construction of the Tower were inserted directly on site.


Each corner edge rests on its own supporting block, applying to it a pressure of 3 to 4 kilograms per square centimetre, and each block is joined to the others by walls. On the Seine side of the construction, the builders used watertight metal caissons and injected compressed air, so that they were able to work below the level of the water.

The assembly of the first level was achieved by the use of twelve temporary wooden scaffolds, 30 metres high, and four larger scaffolds of 40 metres each. "Sand boxes" and hydraulic jacks - replaced after use by permanent wedges - allowed the metal girders to be positioned to an accuracy of one millimetre.

On December 7, 1887, the joining of the major girders up to the first level was completed.

The pieces were hauled up by steam cranes, which themselves climbed up the Tower as they went along using the runners to be used for the Tower's lifts.

Installing public elevators on the Tower raised many technical questions, since there had been no previous experience in elevators climbing to such heights and with such loads; the slanting tracks with various angles further complicated the problems.



The original machines in the West and East piers (up to the first floor only) were provided by the French company Roux Combaluzier Lepape, using hydraulically powered double looped chains and rollers in side guides. Their poor performance led to their removal. They were replaced in 1897 and 1899 by the Fives-Lille machinery, relying on hydraulic accumulators, 16-meter long main pistons, cable loops and manual controls. They were a success, steadfastly lifting the tourists up to the second floor until the late eighties. They were then upgraded to conform to the present day regulations: the old machinery still provides the counterweight power for the dead weights, while the variable parts of the loads were driven by modern high pressure oil pumps and motors controlled by computers.

The original American elevators by Otis in the North and South piers took visitors up to the second floor in a double-decker cabin, using hydraulically powered cables. They were no match for the Fives-Lille units and were scrapped respectively in 1900 from the South pillar and shortly after 1912 from the North pillar, after a failed attempt to re-power it with an electric motor. The increasing amount of visitors during the late fifties led to the installation of large capacity machinery in the North pier in 1965. Manufactured by Schneider Creusot Loire and using the best engineering and electrical machineries available, it was upgraded in 1995 with new cabins and computer controls.

The South pier was rigged anew in 1983 with a small electrically driven elevator by Otis to take customers up to the Jules Verne Restaurant. In 1989, a four-ton service elevator was added (also by Otis) helping to relieve the main elevators of excessive trips up and down.

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