riveting leaky jon boat

[bassNbricks]

hi again! so i recently got a leaky jon boat. i bought a rivet gun and some aluminum rivets. 3/16x3/8 aluminum blind rivets. i attempted to rivet two pieces of the boat together. when i did it didnt make a solid connection. in fact one of the two holes blew out. i tried two other times once was some what ok but loose (the metal wasn't all the way flat I think). the other blew out a hole again. clearly im doing something wrong. are my rivets not long enough? are the two pieces of metal just not cleaned up enough?(I didn't bothering cleaning them) the rivets showed in the mail yesterday and I wanted to try them.) is the aluminum boat too old and soft? lastly i double checked my order on amazon to double check the rivets i bought. apparently theyre aluminum blind rivets with a steel madrel. would that be why?
any and all help is much apreciated

 

[airshot]

If the existing rivets are decent just seal the inside with gluvit sealer. Being a jon boat your not gonna be runnung high speed with big motors. If you have some leaky spots that are troublesome get some " leak stopper" clear roofing sealant to cover those spots and stop the leaks. It is thick and tough. Tractor supply and home depot carry it.
As far as your rivets go, look at youtube videos, your doing sonething wrong.

 

[cyclops2]

Riveting VERY OLD ALUMINUM is touchy.

 

[bassNbricks]

Riveting VERY OLD ALUMINUM is touchy.

That's what I was thinking. Also it doesn't help the holes are a little large and the metal wasn't sitting clean and flush. It was just a practice run. Thank you for your answer

 

[mbullen]

You'll find many opinions to the "old aluminum" theory. In my experience, the older alloys were of better quality than today's formulas. Contamination plays a large part if welding, though. This mostly speaks to the user's ability to get it clean. ...and speaking of clean, you do want to clean the area thoroughly and you'll want to work the two panels flat. It's a bit difficult to interpret the section with which you're working as stated, but if the area is buckled, dirty and ovaled-out, a blind rivet is rarely going to do the job in any scenario. You might want to look into solid rivets that have some clinching power, not just fastening ability, especially if you're under the waterline. If the hole is too big for the hardware, drill to next size up. A dab of 5200 on the shank never hurt anything, either.
Just my thoughts on it.

 

[thill]

For what it’s worth, a property bucked solid rivet will expand enough to fill most ovaled-out or enlarged holes, but it may not pull buckled materials together.

Personally, I use blind rivets to pull the materials together nicely in troublesome areas. Then I pop out the blinds and replace them one by one with solids. Works well.