As mentioned in the post on November 25th, we were getting ready to tackle repairing the after section of the jon boat because of severe pitting corrosion that ate through the hull bottom due to florists foam put in place of regular flotation foam during a previous repair.

Port side. Holes with rivets are in the black circles.

Starboard side. Holes with rivets are in the black circles

What we did first was to clean up the aluminum in the areas of the pitting with a wire brush and determined where the pitting created holes in the hull and where it only did mild surface damage. We identified holes on both sides of the hull and also determined the holes were the only serious damage. Some of the other surface damaged by pitting were shallow. We then applied Rustoleum Self Etching primer for the undercoat  then painted the surfaces with a Rustoleum camouflage color. After drying we drilled out the pits with 1/8″ drill. Luckily none of the pits themselves  were larger than 1/8″. We then applied a 2-3mm coating of 3M 5200 all over the areas. (in the photos it is the orange color, the camera flash distorted the actual color) using a plastic spreader. This layer of 5200 smoothed the hull surface by filling in the eroded areas.  We then inserted rivets in all of the holes while the 5200 was still wet. The 5200 seals the rivets, making sure the rivet will not leak over time. If the pitting areas were deeper or more holes found we might have placed an aluminum plate over the area using the 5200 as an adhesive. As it was we feel the rivet solution was the best for this repair.

The next repair is the transom. The plywood stiffener was rotted and needed to be replaced. Stay tuned.