Visited the old power plant museum in St. Louis and was shocked by the size of the rivets on the 1920s boiler.

They were over an inch thick, and the guide said they had to be heated cherry-red and driven by a four-man team before the pneumatic hammers we use now.

3 comments

3 Comments

lee62726d ago

Those old rivets are no joke. You see them on bridges too. The trick for cleaning them up is a wire wheel on an angle grinder, gets all the old scale and rust off without chewing up the metal. A good coat of boiled linseed oil after that stops the rust coming back. It's a ton of work but it looks right.

wyatt85126d ago

Wire wheel and linseed oil, huh? Sounds like the perfect weekend plan if you hate having free time and enjoy the smell of hot metal and regret. Better you than me, man. You ever get halfway through and wonder why you didn't just paint over it?

seth_craig8514d ago

Just glad my weekend regret smells better than my last relationship.