Back to June 2015 … and my fiancé and I take in her 11 and 16-year old nieces due to an untimely death in the family. The bulk of the year and our time was spent making sure they were adjusted to living with us, getting squared away in new schools, learned to somehow accept the loss that they suffered, and otherwise ‘adjusted to life’ with new parents.
Well the tiny younger one not only takes an interest in anything mechanical (we buy her robotic toys and the like), but she likes to be involved with whatever chore I’m doing around the house or the yard. But the one thing I’ve let go ‘late’ this year was getting my 12’ skiff back into the water, due to priorities of finishing the rigging on that 16’ skiff that I had put a new transom in on, plus replacing the previous 40hp power with a used/mint 60hp with new controls and such.
Anyway – to make a long story short – I finally resort to asking the youngest girl to help me re-rivet the 12’ Starcraft skiff – as I can’t do it alone – and I want to put it in the water this weekend. It will be the boat for both girls to learn boating in and to consider as their own. So I show her the rivets, the rivet gun and bucking tool and explained the entire process – showing her how we need to deform the tail end of the rivet by holding the buck against it as the gun hammers away at the head. Easily frightened by new or surprised sounds, I had her do a few tests on scrap metal and such to prepare her for the noise and vibration. I also gave her heavy gloves to wear while she held the buck up against the rivet. Add in some good ear muffs and off we go …
We had ~15 new rivets to put in. After the 2nd one, wow – she was dead on perfect in assessing whether it was ’good to go’ or if it needed just a little more deformation! Not only that – now she wanted her turn on the rivet gun. Also attached is the photo of her 1st driven rivet. She also put in a few blind rivets, but I had to help her with the hand-held rivet tool, as she’s so tiny for her age (50-pounds) that she couldn’t squeeze the grips at all. Attached you can see the hull with a few spots we fixed. Add in a little West Systems G-Flex epoxy and off we go!
Watch out boys … this girl can now tell you which one a regular, Phillips or Allen screwdriver is and not only knows the difference between a closed and a blind rivet, but has even set them in place. My little engineer … what a girl!
Well the tiny younger one not only takes an interest in anything mechanical (we buy her robotic toys and the like), but she likes to be involved with whatever chore I’m doing around the house or the yard. But the one thing I’ve let go ‘late’ this year was getting my 12’ skiff back into the water, due to priorities of finishing the rigging on that 16’ skiff that I had put a new transom in on, plus replacing the previous 40hp power with a used/mint 60hp with new controls and such.
Anyway – to make a long story short – I finally resort to asking the youngest girl to help me re-rivet the 12’ Starcraft skiff – as I can’t do it alone – and I want to put it in the water this weekend. It will be the boat for both girls to learn boating in and to consider as their own. So I show her the rivets, the rivet gun and bucking tool and explained the entire process – showing her how we need to deform the tail end of the rivet by holding the buck against it as the gun hammers away at the head. Easily frightened by new or surprised sounds, I had her do a few tests on scrap metal and such to prepare her for the noise and vibration. I also gave her heavy gloves to wear while she held the buck up against the rivet. Add in some good ear muffs and off we go …
We had ~15 new rivets to put in. After the 2nd one, wow – she was dead on perfect in assessing whether it was ’good to go’ or if it needed just a little more deformation! Not only that – now she wanted her turn on the rivet gun. Also attached is the photo of her 1st driven rivet. She also put in a few blind rivets, but I had to help her with the hand-held rivet tool, as she’s so tiny for her age (50-pounds) that she couldn’t squeeze the grips at all. Attached you can see the hull with a few spots we fixed. Add in a little West Systems G-Flex epoxy and off we go!
Watch out boys … this girl can now tell you which one a regular, Phillips or Allen screwdriver is and not only knows the difference between a closed and a blind rivet, but has even set them in place. My little engineer … what a girl!
