Leaky Rivet Locator

Hey all. I came across a way to locate leaky rivets by accident. I have a 17 ft. Tracker I'm restoring. When filling boat with water i found that some of the rivets were leaking that fastened the keel the length of the boat. It was very hard to determine which of these rivets are leaking , so I did my best. I flipped the boat and then rebuked and replaced the rivets I thought were bad. I proceeded to prep bottom for painting. When wiping the bottom down with acetone I spilt some along the keel. I for some reason crawled under and looked inside the boat. I saw that the acetone had seeped thru and was easily visible around several rivets. I proceeded to wet other rivets a found a few more. The new and rebuke rivets did not allow the acetone thru. Not sure if this has been talked about but thought it might help some find them hard to find leaky rivets. John

That's not a bad idea! Filling with water per se isn't reliable, as the pressure exerted on the hull is quite different than the pressure on the hull when the hull is immersed ... i.e., pressure exerted via displacement is > water weight.

if you have some metal working experience, you have probably used or have
seen the blue dye that machinists use to find cracks invisible to the naked eye.
If you don't mind the blue stain. PVC purple primer will work just as well.
most of the blue/purble stuff can be wiped off with acetone.

good post !!

Something I discovered was a dent puller for automotive hail dents works on flat surface, it has a suction cup and when placed over a rivet it will not seal if it has a leak. I got mine from harbor freight for 5 bucks it's about 3 inches round and works great. I do like the ideas of Jonny and yours with acetone on corners.

The wife hates the smell of chemicals in the garage [-X [-X hope she doesn't smell the gas I spilled yesterday lol