The Murphy Builders Site

This being a multi thousand rivet week on my floats - I thought I would
mention one of my best KISS ideas for removing sealant around the
rivets. It occurred to me after wearing my finger nails down and the
skin off my thumbs several months ago...

For removing sealant around rivets:
Take a few inches of 3/8" wood doweling.
Drill a 1/4" hole in the end just deep enough to fit over a rivet head.
Chuck it in a variable speed drill.
Place over rivet and rotate it two or three revolutions.
That will loosen the sealant so it can easily be slid off. You don't
want to overdo it and polish the aluminum if you are going to paint later.

For the improved tool - drill both ends of the dowel and wrap tape
tightly around the ends and you are good for many hundreds of rivets at
a time. Works great with sikkaflex but I haven't tried it on proseal.

Ken





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If your timing is just right. Usually the next morning the sikaflex will be
just the right hardness that you can rub it off with a terry towel without
having it smear.

You must live right Drew!
Timing helps a lot but for me when it is dry enough to not smear, it is
stuck pretty good. Maybe I should stop prepping under the rivet heads or
use the time expired sealant that they keep trying to sell me ;)
Ken

Drew Dalgleish wrote:

If your timing is just right. Usually the next morning the sikaflex will be
just the right hardness that you can rub it off with a terry towel without
having it smear.

Maybe it's a selective memory thing. I spent a lot of time cleaning up my
floats and tried a lot of different things. I even picked many of the gobs
off the rivet tails. Prepping under the rivet heads is a good thing I found
that I could deburr and prep at the same time using a die grinder with a 2"
scotchbrite wheel. Just a quick pass down the joint line was all it took.
Where are you getting your sikaflex? Nobody in London stocks it anymore and
they want me to buy a case before they'll order any.
Oh I have a building hint. I didn't seal my inspection hatches and it's
something I'm going to do sometime this winter. I've found that my floats
Which are pretty tight will take on water in the rain and when the
wakeboard jerks have a busy weekend.

Drew
Patene masonry supply stocks "aluminum" color in 300 ml. tubes (about
$6.80) and several colors in "sausages". I think their main outlet is in
London and for sure an outlet in Kitchener and Guelph. I only buy a few
at a time. New tubes have the expiry date on the inside piston which I
check. I believe I had an incident of expired stuff on interior
bulkheads that had poor adhesion although I've also seen expired stuff
grip very well so maybe something else is going on. Some marine users
are pretty picky about dates and how long the tube has been open.
Ken

Drew Dalgleish wrote:

Maybe it's a selective memory thing. I spent a lot of time cleaning up my
floats and tried a lot of different things. I even picked many of the gobs
off the rivet tails. Prepping under the rivet heads is a good thing I found
that I could deburr and prep at the same time using a die grinder with a 2"
scotchbrite wheel. Just a quick pass down the joint line was all it took.
Where are you getting your sikaflex? Nobody in London stocks it anymore and
they want me to buy a case before they'll order any.
Oh I have a building hint. I didn't seal my inspection hatches and it's
something I'm going to do sometime this winter. I've found that my floats
Which are pretty tight will take on water in the rain and when the
wakeboard jerks have a busy weekend.