Interesting points Anon, there are other aspects to consider. Fuels are by their nature hygroscopic. I take it the aircraft were being refuelled at lower altitudes where it was hot and humid. The fuel would then attract more water which could then settle and separate in the tank. Plus the hot and cold times of the tanks would form condensation inside, adding to the amount of free water. When being pumped through the carb it’s temperature would also drop when passing through the venturi, that could be a factor. They are still learning about ice formation in aircraft, the crash at Heathrow of the BA 777 has shed some new light on a phenomena that was thought to be well understood for decades.

Most of the ally alloy rivets do work-harden when rivetting. I have a selection of AS and SP types running the range of materials being L36, L37, L58 & L86 (black, natural, green & violet), AS has been superceded by SP standards and are I believe interchangeable. I also have bucket of MS-AD rivets that have hardened already. One day, when I get a proper oven….. I have used a number of the AGS (British) rivets for a couple of small projects and have experienced the work-hardening. The trick when rivetting is buzz them in one go, maybe with a slight touch afterwards. Continuous hammering causes them to become more resistant….
What kind of equipment do you use to rivet?

What on earth would she do with it ?

Sit in the cockpit with airbags?

Indeed, sacrificial coatings and parts is not new and has many applications. The Sidney Opera House uses zinc blocks to protect the steel pipes of the air conditioning which are cooled by sea water. Zinc annodes are also used in simple water boilers in homes these days. The rivets I used are both of the same dimensions (0410= 1/8 dia 5/8 long), heads are both 90 degree and the dimensions are the same. That is why I chose those. I think the choice of material has mainly been down to availability at the time. Post war Landrovers were built out of large amounts of re-cycled Spitfires. Steel was short at the time, it was spread all over Europe in 25-50 ton blocks at the time. Even the pop rivets used on the Landrovers came from the AGS stock…

@ Powerandpassion.
Interesting points you made about the differences between the hidminium and magnesium rivets.
I got to thinking about the weight saving and put my OCD head on and had a look.
I happen to have a few hidminiums (AS2229 0410) and loads of the magnesiums (AS162 0410). I weighed them with my scales and came up with this:
70x AS2229 0410 = 26 grams
70x AS162 0410 = 24 grams
Both are c/s 90 deg rivets. It might not seem a great difference but rivet distances are in general 3-5x D (diameter), so the number nailed into an airframe is quite a number. I wonder what the weight saving would be. Have you counted the rivet holes?
When demanding them in the RAF, the D of Q was per 1/4 lb. The thing there being that if you had a bag of each, they would both weigh the same..;)

Well if nothing else this thread has helped me figure out what the different colours in this lot mean.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]245230[/ATTACH]

You’ve got American (MS) and AGS (SP/AS) rivets there. The countersunk (100 deg) with a small dimple and bevelled tail are MS20426 AD’s. The purple with a rounded (snap) head are SP80’s, they should have an identification (‘O’ or ‘S’). The magnesium should also have an ‘X’ id.

I have seen some good examples in my time. In ’77, morale was a bit low in the RAF and someone had used masking tape on the bottom of a Wessex that was visiting us at Machrihanish. It said, ‘good ‘ere init’..

The Sunderland at Duxford was said to have been used as a disco before it was rescued.