We have a bell eveningstar royalex. The gunwales are black, plastic I think. The problem is part of the gunwale has pulled up- it can be separated from the canoe itself. It looks like the gunwale was not pushed all the way down onto the canoe when the rivets were installed. You can see the rivet holes are on the very edge of the royalex material so there is not enough material to keep the rivets in.
So my husband has removed the rivets for that section, which was about 6 of them. The plan is to push the gunwale down all the way onto the canoe, and redrill the holes. Then replace the rivets. Of coarse in his huge supply of miscellaneous screw etc in the garage, no rivets.
My question is, should he get some rivets, stainless steel I suppose? Or would it be ok just to use screws? If he uses screws, the bottom of the screw will end up in the curved part of the gunwale so there is no way to put a nut on it. What are the chances the screws will unscrew frequently?
Thanks for the input.

I would go with Aluminum pop rivets and drill next to the old holes so you are in "fresh boat". Rivets are easy to find at the supply stores.
Kent

quote Arcola: "I would go with Aluminum pop rivets and drill next to the old holes so you are in "fresh boat". Rivets are easy to find at the supply stores.
Kent"

+1

Rivets are easy and will be best. Just did some re-riveting on the gunwales of my Bell Morningstar last week. I got some that were very reasonable off E-bay about a month ago, but I usually get mine online because it's an hour(+) to a good hardware store.

Rivets it is then. I'm heading to town today and wil add them to my list- we need the canoe this weekend. Like you Ozarkpaddler, we don't have much for local shopping. Our closest grocery store is 30 minutes away. If we want to shop anywhere besides Walmart then we need to travel an hour.

Remember that you will need to get a rivet gun to install them, if you don't already have one. It's a specialized tool, but the rivets are useless without one.