Riveting Tanks

I started riveting tanks for my -8 today. Using Rick's fay sealing and wet riveting method, all went well so far. Question, does anyone have any tips on how to handle rivets while wearing gloves and using Proseal? I ended up using big toothpicks, put a dab of Proseal on the tip and picked up a rivet to insert in the hole. Worked but far from ideal, is there a better way?

I grab the rivet head with hemostats, swipe the stem in the proseal, and stick it in the hole. No gloves.

If I remember correctly, I used a tooth pick to put dabs of sealant in the dimples, then picked up the rivets with gloved fingers and planted the stems in the sealant.

I used 3 boxes of latex gloves when I did my tanks ... nothing about Proseal is not messy. I did find that a set of plastic filleting spoons were very helpful to do the sealing of the ribs prior to putting the back baffle on.

Don't dip the rivets; put sealant in the hole with a toothpick, then insert the rivet.

Rivets

longranger said:

If I remember correctly, I used a tooth pick to put dabs of sealant in the dimples, then picked up the rivets with gloved fingers and planted the stems in the sealant.

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That's how I did it too. I pressed the rivet in place with a dry paper towel square to get the ooze off. It also confirms a good seal when you see the little black donut on the paper towel.

A rag or paper towel wet with lacquer thinner will wipe the glove finger off every dozen or so.

Pro-seal is good for you?

We just use a large box of Latex gloves, a plastic spreading slick from a West-systems kit, a lot of good paper towels, and a gallon of "M.E.K.". The Pro-seal will not hurt you, but you need to wear old cloths and may be a throw away paint jumper, because it don't wash out of cloth.. A little Lacquer-thinner while the Pro-seal is still wet with wipe up the overage. As it sets up you will use Acetone, and as it get hard you will use the "M.E.K.". You will need to clean your clecos and tools after each session. Clean every thing before you go home that night and come back to it the next day. After it sets for a couple of days it is there for the ride. Just pretend you are in art class in the second grade again and have fun with it..
Hope this helps. Yours as always. R.E.A. III #80888

Recently I had to remove the left tank and open the aft baffle between #2 and #3 ribs to repair a small leak caused by having the vent line sealed during a significant rise in OAT. The high pressure in the tank broke the pro-seal seal along the bottom of the tank at the aft baffle/bottom skin joint.

What I noticed in removing the old sealant was that the bottom skin was very shiny at that corner, I had failed to rough it up sufficiently with sand paper to get good adhesion. That may have been the reason the increased pressure caused the sealant to let go.

So, a word to the wise, don't be bashful about roughing up any surface where pro-seal is supposed to adhere.

I would add that you may want to double layer the rubber gloves so you can pull one set off and quickly replace them.

One word of advice, DO NOT clean off the excess pro-seal off the tank with either Acetone or MEK!!!

I cleaned the top of my left tank and left the bottom of that tank and the entire right tank to be sanded by the painter. The only place I have had the paint blister is the top of the left tank.

With the tanks open, by all means, rough up the aluminum and cover everything with pro-seal! Where the BNC connector penetrates the tanks for the capacitance senders it looks like a small mountain of pro-seal. The good news is that I haven't had any leaks in that spot.

In short, you cannot use to much pro-seal!

I did go through a lot of popsicle sticks that my wife picked up for me at her favorite craft store.

I use some skinny needle nose pliers to pick up the rivet (could use tweezers), and a wooden coffee stirring stick to push them into a prosealed hole. Keeps proseal off the gloves and it's easy to wipe off the tool tips every ten rivets or so to keep things neat (ha!).

I used a lot of the Latex gloves, perhaps 150. I would dab the proseal in with a toothpick across a row the length of the tank, then stick in the whole row of rivets. walk around and shoot them. Wipe off the side with MEK after finishing.

Tanks are Done

Tested tanks this weekend and no leaks! Beginning to think I might actually be able to build this thing. As for the original question, I found using a skewer that was sharp on one end and flat on the other and about 1/8" round worked well. Used the sharp end to dab sealant into the holes and then touched a little sealant on the blunt end. Picked the rivet up with tweezers and stuck it to the skewer's blunt end then inserted it in the hole. Thanks for all the suggestions, I used many of them.