Two suggestions:

Make the battens from shim brass instead of .005" styrene. This provides slimmer battens (probably more accurate thickness). And you can use ACC to tack one end, line it up and glue it into place. I've not tried that approach yet, but intend to.

Another approach that has worked for me - make the batten strips without the rivets, glue with solvent cement, then after its dry, apply rivets one at a time sliced off a discarded model. The battens should be manageable without little pockets to collect the solvent (and cause melting), and the glued-on rivet method is really not very hard once you get into it.

I like to have the rivets on the donor model coloured with a contrasting ink or light paint so once off the donor model its easier to tell which way is "up". Then I lay all the rivets for a given line on the line and use a dental pick, very tiny paint brush or whatever else works to line them up. It can take some poking and prodding, but there is knack that comes quickly. I find I can do an acceptably neat row by eye provided the rivets are all moved into place before any are glued.

Once content with the location of the rivets, I use that very very fine paint brush (it may have 6 strands or so) to apply a tiny bit of solvent near the rivet head. The idea is to allow just a tiny amount to creep beneath the rivet witout disturbing the rivet. Some are disturbed, but that's fixable. The amount of cement used at this point is not enough to cement a rivet permanently in place. Its just enough to make the rivet hold on and not fly out of the way with a heavy breath. One can still move them about at this point if need be by adding a tiny bit more solvent and pushing with a knife point. Once they are all in place, I then run the brush down the strip of rivets a couple of times with more solvent - this time welding them into place.

I do it all beneath an illuminated magnifier and am pretty happy with the results. I did a proto 2000 50 box car this way to add the ACR rivets - 23 rivets per row, many panels per side. It even worked without stripping the paint.

Rob Kirkham