Quinte Fishing

Looking for a little advice on repairing a slight leak in my aluminum boat. I have a couple rivets in a cross beam in my 10 year old Discovery Aluminimum that seem to have loosened just slightly. The beam is around the middle of the boat. In rough water when the bottom of the boat moves up and down against the water, I'm taking in a trickle of water coming out from under the cross beam. Am I better off putting a coating of marine silicone around the outside of the rivets in question, or try and seal the beam inside?? Any help would be much appreciated. Want to try and get this fixed up before our week at camp. Tight lines

Hi weedman
A couple of things come to mind. I think you can access the floor of the boat[inside]. If you place a hard object outside beneath the offending rivet you can strike the rivet from the inside to form a better seal. try this first before the sealant.
As a second thing some guys get there boats welded when they have a problem like this....Larry

Here's a site that might be of some help.

http://pagebiz.com/bds/aluminum/repair.html

Good luck.

_________________
I work to fish.

if you can get to it give it a couple off taps with a air hammer sealed mine tight

Appreciate all the advice provided here on my minor boat problem. After tapping both sides of the riviets and applying a little sealant, we took the boat out for a pounding in 25 km. winds on Balsam Saturday and it held up fine. Did some trolling as well along the west shore of the lake Saturday morning and picked up two nice slot walleye (released), and lost a large muskie, pushing 45 inches or so. Beautiful fish, I must say, but I'll never figure out why Muskie love worm harnesses so much. My cottage going cousins have always sworn by them. Thanks again to those who posted.