Riveting question about riveting decking to ribs. Same holes or new holes?

[Wmcdonald]

I don’t know how to remove the parts of the original rivets stuck inside the ribs. I am afraid that they will work loose and fall down to the bottom where they will get stuck in the drain holes like so many kidney stones.

 

[DWbaseball]

My technique for any old rivets has been aggressively drilling them out. If they get loose and the tails are hanging on then I use a set of vice grips to grab and pull on the tail. I have used up a bunch of harbor freight 3/16 and 1/4 drill bits drilling out old rivets and drilling the holes to install new ones.

In general when installing things with rivets, including the floor to the tops of the ribs, I have avoided any existing holes and tried to drill into a fresh part of the metal for a fresh hole. The rivet tail will not get a good grip if you make oblong and oversized holes by aiming for the old hole and missing a little off center. If you need to reuse a hole that's a little big, size up the rivet thickness if you can.

 

[Gibbles]

Assuming we are talking about the ribbing that's riveted directly to the Hull/sheeting.
Those I did my best to re-use holes, but it's not going to hurt anything if you need to make new ones.

In some places I did my best to use the same holes, but if it didn't look right i might add a second one for good measure (if possible).

I figure you're using Guvit to seal up the hull before assembly anyways?
I wouldn't think too hard about the bits that fall into the holes, just looking at how these things were assembled from the factory makes me think of something my grandpa would say.

His company specialized in bridges, and building roads.
"You're building a bridge not a piano."
Or in this case
"You're building a boat not a Piano."

The hull on my starchief had a "tilt" to it, they had those big alumnum stringer/floor supports.

I noticed one of those had an obvious bend to it, so I straightened it up and added some bracing.
Later I figured out that the hull wasn't true, so they bent that stringer to make the floor sit "flat" with the hull.

Then I could almost hear my grandpa say "You're building a boat not a piano!"