I also recomend you contact Starcraft before you start repairs. Watch what you are doing and knowone will notice your boat has been repaired. Not by the rivet head or the flatened end inside the boat. Keep in mind, the rivet must swell inside the rivet holes in the boat, that is how it is made water tight. Hit the rivet about 3 times while your helper backs up the rivet with the piece of steel. Use tool with concave radius that fits the rivet head. Get someone inside the boat with a good size piece of steel. Use a knife to pop the heads off the leaking rivets and punch out the remainder of the rivet. Identify the leaking rivets by filling the boat with water (while on the trailer). You can buy a tool that will fit the rivet head but I made my own from a piece of A-2. I bought replacement rivets from an aluminum boat dealer nearby. I let someone else drive the boat (big Mistake) and they hit a submerged stump while boating a lake in Wisconsin. Stay away from the ones that have repairs with welds, bolts and and silicone putty. There are a lot of boats to be had cheap with loose rivets. I you feel there must be a sealer, Pliobond is a good one to use. ![]() Most often there is no sealer between the sheets at the seam since the rivets draw the metal up tight and for a good seal. It is easy to want to overdrive the rivets and to try and use ones that are too long resist the urge. Also you will probably find that there are some 'oversize' rivets to fix factory mistakes. You will find many bad ones near the obvious ones. Use a VERY sharp chisel to cut the heads off of a few (4 or 5) loose or bad ones in a row then replace them with new ones. A few practice trys and you'll get the hang of it. In seconds the rivet head is caulked and properly formed and the inside is upset properly. When the inside person hears the hammer press against the skin, he pushes the bucking bar back HARD and the outside guy squeezes off a few licks with the hammer. This is a two person job, the one on the outside uses cuts the head off the old one, places the new rivet into the hole and places the set against the head. The ATS guys can help you get started if you talk nice to them.įor a couple of hundred rivets just use a cheap long barrel air hammer and 'tease' the trigger. ![]() 401 shank from an Aircraft Tool Supply Co. Get good ear muffs, an L shaped bucking bar, and a straight and an angled rivet set with a. About 3500 go below the waterline on a 22 footer and take 10-12 hours to put in. They are cheap and yopu will need more than you think. Rivets are sold by the pound, about 1200 rivets of the sizes you will need. I use 1100 series alloy since it is preferently corroded before the hull alloy. You need rivets that are total thickness + 125% of the rivet diameter long. The name escapes me right now but it was something tricky like Rivet Supply Co. That said, I have done a few boats and used braiser head rivets from a company in the Bronx. Rivet failure is caused by electrolytic action between the rivet alloy and the hull alloy in most cases, evidenced by a small spot of fine white powder around the area. in the case of rivets and boats - the smooth side to the water. Hope that is not the case with your boat because the fix for this is rather radical (read that as expensive) and in extreme cases the boat has only scrap metal value.įour rules I learned 1. ![]() Seems that sometimes the aluminum flexes so much when they are pushed hard (local boat dealer told me that he felt Starcraft was putting way to much engine on them even though they somehow did get BIA certification for the HP)that fatigue cracks propagate from one rivet hole to the next and then the rivets loosen up. ![]() I postponed the decision to buy and was later very happy I had. Early 80's, I looked into buying a used Starcraft runabout that leaked when I took it out for a trial. Starcraft makes some great boats, I've had a couple and they were fine little 12' and 14' fishing boats.
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