After 5-6 coats of paint, the masts are ready for the external track which is riveted in place with stainless steel rivets. Now I know why people spend good money on professional rivet guns. Setting stainless rivets with a cheap rivet gun is very difficult. All the tendons in my hands have been mashed to death and my forearms will be sore for a week. And that's after just one of the masts.
You can see in the pics here that the heads of the rivets stand a bit proud of the bottom of the track. That's because I ordered rivets designed for a countersunk hole. Oops. But they are snug and do not stick up enough to interfere with the sail slides, so there should be no problem. Fingers crossed.
Pete,
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful and informative picture record of the build! You need to consider putting all this in a book or manual of some sort.