January 16
Time to get serious about rivet removal. We acquired an extra angle grinder, extra face masks and got down to business. Here is the deal: The inside sheet metal has to come out. There are about 1200 rivets holding this sheet metal to the studs.
Today we removed 2 of the metal panels, and started on #3 and #4 -- things are going much faster with 2 angle grinders (about twice as fast, not surprisingly), which took about 3 hours.
Rivets along the bottoms and sides of the sheet metal panels, spot (or tack?) welds along the top.
The angle grinder with grinding wheel goes through a rivet in about 12 seconds.
Behind the steel panels is fiberglass insulation. We may replace this, as-needed.
(Update: We yanked all of the fiberglass and replaced it with a sandwich of cotton and rigid foam unsulation. See November 2005.)
Turning rivets into dust yields a lot of...you guessed it...dust! Airborne metal particulate matter -- not good for your sinuses, lungs, eyes or skin. Please, wear protective gear! Hot sparks will go down the back of your shirt, land in your ear (got ear plugs?), and generally get all over you. We learned to wear long sleeve shirts with collars buttoned to the top, in addition to eye protection, ear plugs, hats, sturdy boots and gloves for this nasty operation. The next few weekends will probably be spent removing the wall and ceiling sheet metal.