Re Riviting

[AJ168]

My dad and I are in the process of re-riviting our 18 ft alluminum cc. We're using marine rivets, and are putting them in with an air hammer and a bottle jack on the other side to apply pressure. We juust finished today and I filled the boat with water to check for leaks. (I know that this isn't a good test, but, it's better than testing on the water and finding that it leaks.) Well, almost every rivit leaked just a little bit. There was just a little bead of water around each one. I'm not sure what we did wrong. Every rivit we put in seemed to be tighter than the origionals. Why might they be leaking?

 

[Pogo123]

Re: Re Riviting

Most likely, AJ .. it was the angle. You very probably got them just a bit off line ... but -<br /><br />Something that may have contributed is the hardness of the rivet .. when you say "marine" rivets, that doesn't tell me much as there are various grades, just like there is aluminum, and some are more malleable than others.<br /><br />I've never seen the case where I had to use an air hammer to set boat rivets ..generally they are T-2 hardness which can be set by hand with a one to two pound mallet backed by a "bucking bar" (I use a 6" length of railroad track .. and they don't have to be hit all that hard, either.<br /><br />You also may have atually peened them out too far causing the shank to draw up after it swells out.<br /><br />Actually .. I dunno .. there are variables here that I know nothing about. Wish I could be of more help, but you might just try the hand method of peening them again, but not too forcefully.