These rivets all have rusty mandrels, indicating high levels of moisture in the core even areas where the rivets didn't appear to have leaked and the wood appears okay.

CD 16 seat box/cockpit panels removed.

Seat box removal, showing the exploratory drilling on the port side that made me decide to remove everything. The dark holes indicate bad balsa core. The outer holes are marked "OK" with a red marker, although I may find that's a bit hopeful when I go further.

When actually leaking enough to cause rot, they look more like this.

These rivets all have rusty mandrels, indicating high levels of moisture in the core even areas where the rivets didn't appear to have leaked and the wood appears okay.

Even the rivets that looked good simply fell apart when bumped or drilled. These are aluminum rivets with a steel mandrel. Not a problem if they never get wet. Oh that's right, it's a boat!

Exploratory drilling showed stained but essentially good wood near the helm seat box pop rivets. I'm amazed, given what I found on the other side and the fact that these two rivet heads had fallen off.

Here are the holes that concerned me next. The seat box/cockpit liners are fastened to the deck with blind rivets. Do these go into the balsa core? Yikes! The rivet heads have popped off and the caulking has failed. Not a good sign if these go into the balsa core.

M

These rivets all have rusty mandrels, indicating high levels of moisture in the core even areas where the rivets didn't appear to have leaked and the wood appears okay.

Marco Flamingo
Oct 2, 2015

There are no comments to display.

Top