When pulling the rivets, there is no way to avoid some damage to upper laminate, but that won't matter because this will be drilled out and filled with epoxy.

Here's the wet swarf from a bad hole, even though the boat had been in the garage for several months. All of this had to be dug out and then the hole dried out.

Going aft, you can see the change on a rotten fastening. The pop rivet holes on both sides were okay.

For some rivets, I had to drill down and then pull out the remains of the rivet. This balsa seems okay even though the adjacent test hole was discolored.

When pulling the rivets, there is no way to avoid some damage to upper laminate, but that won't matter because this will be drilled out and filled with epoxy.

Pulling corroded rivets out of the core after the heads had been drilled off (or the heads had already fallen off). Here is another picture showing that the bead of caulking could hold dirty water behind the panels and contribute to the leaking pop rivets.

Pop rivet heads that just fell off during removal.

This shows the flotation foam behind the starboard panel. I intend to reuse most of it, but fastened into place with spray foam. When loose, they act as wedges against the panels and may have contributed to the pop rivet failures.

M

When pulling the rivets, there is no way to avoid some damage to upper laminate, but that won't matter because this will be drilled out and filled with epoxy.

Marco Flamingo
Oct 2, 2015

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