How many have successfully done it ?

[Guest]

Re-riveted Rotastay / Plastimo furling foils together ...

Mine have worked at the joints and some rivets failed ... so intention is to drill out and re-rivet.

New foil / replacements are not option as no supplier where I am .. so DIY repair is only way !

 

[seumask]

I was at Seateach the UK plastimo agent at the weekend as I am refurbishing my 609. They queried how I had got the rivets out and I said I had been lucky and managed to drill them out accurately, admittedly the ones on the main spar seem to be fine. I intend to re rivet the ones that I have taken out all joining various plastic parts to the spar. They said that on the current version they use SS screws instead of rivets and that they could see no issue with using these instead and suggested that if necessary you drill a new set of holes for the screws. They seem t o be generally very helpful if not a little pricy.

 

[Guest]

Must admit - screws crossed my mind ...

SS screws seems a way to go ... but will have a look at it again.

I have gun and rivets from another job ... so ??

 

[ShipsWoofy]

me, I found four or five had failed when I inspected the mast a few years back.

I drilled out and upp'd the rivet by one size, seemed ok when I dropped the mast 2 years later. Maybe they are death nails, but so far it seems to have worked ok.

Below>> one replaced two to go.

You can see how loose they were and how far apart I could pull the strips. After replacing the 2 other u/s rivets it was much tighter and closed the gap nicely.

 

[davidpbo]

I have, but your post makes me think I should inspect this year. (Mast is down so no problem). I rather think I drilled the heads off and knocked the rest of the rivet out. Maybe they had not worked loose like yours.

David

 

[yoda]

Re-riveted my Facnor 3 times now. You do end up with a lot of holes but doesn't seem to make any difference. If you need to replace the wire now is probably the time to do it.

Yoda

 

[Guest]

Now I hadn't thought about drilling new holes ... I assumed to use the old .. in fact if I made new ... then I don't need to touch the old ...
Considering that boat will now have mast dropped every year ... as I need to truck from home to launch and back etc. as my canal is via soft garden ground etc. - unsuitable for crane etc. I will consider single rivet additional to ones already there and slightly smaller to keep strength in foil.

 

[DaveS]

Sorry for the late post - on holiday last week. I've fitted one from new and taken apart two Plastimo furlers - present and previous boat - and on each occasion drilling out the ss rivets was a right pain. I can see why Plastimo have changed to using screws! I don't understand why stainless rivets were employed in the first place: the rivets only act to retain everything in the right place, the actual loads are carried by the shaped extrusions. Worst of all I suspect that it is corrosion set up by the dissimilar metals (no Duralac included in kit or even mentioned in the fitting instructions IIRC) that causes the holes to enlarge (as per Dogwatch's pic.)

To avoid both corrosion and drilling stainless, I used (dear) monel rivets for replacement the first time, and (cheap) plain aluminium the second time - with Duralac in both cases. The use of aluminium rivets is likely to cause sharp intakes of breath in boaty circles so should probably not be recommended, but I look at the foil each winter and so far, so good.