Jerry, Thanks for the FYI. I bought a new mast for my M-10 and used aluminum rivets to attach the sail track. I guess I know what I'll be doing later this summer!! Spraying new gel coat and new rivits. Skip -----Original Message----- From: jerry montgomery <jerry@jerrymontgomery.org> To: For and about Montgomery Sailboats <montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Wed, Apr 4, 2012 2:50 pm Subject: Re: M_Boats: Pop rivets? I'll disagree with you on aluminum rivits, Doug. Stainless are way tronger, pull much tigjhter, and last longer. On the M-10's we started out using aluminum rivits to fasten down the sail rack. After a rew years in salt water, they would go ZIP and totally come ff. The only thing I use them for now is fasten ing down the small plastic lamcleats, which will crack from stainless because of the increased ressure. jerry ---- Original Message ----- rom: "douglas kelch" <doug1kelch@gmail.com> o: "Montgomery" <montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> ent: Wednesday, April 04, 2012 10:41 AM ubject: M_Boats: Pop rivets? I am curious about Tom's comment on stainless pop rivets. I used to use stainless self taping screws. Over 10 years of use, often in saltwater, they fused to the boom and were not easily removable and the resulting larger hole was not useable. I switched to aluminum pop rivets as thier strength seems to be well in excess of the need on small boats like ours. There does not seem to be any need or advantage to stainless pop rivets. Am I wrong here? Thanks Doug Kelch M15 G" #310 "Seas the Day" - am using the free version of SPAMfighter. e are a community of 7 million users fighting spam. PAMfighter has removed 6339 of my spam emails to date. et the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len The Professional version does not have this message