Titanic's Cheap Rivets Doomed Ship?

1bigsteve · Post by **1bigsteve** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 9:39 am

Here is an article that popped up today in the New York Times about the Titanic's Rivets:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/scien ... ref=slogin

I found it on the main page of CBS news. You may want to check it out before it is removed, all you Titanic fans.

-1bigsteve (o:

twinsrwe · Post by **twinsrwe** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 5:48 pm

Interesting article, Steve. Thanks for posting it.

Kat · Post by **Kat** » Fri Apr 25, 2008 6:09 pm

Do people who know about this controversy have any input to this question?
Thanks BigSteve for the item!
[I notice you posted it on April 15th!]

1bigsteve · Post by **1bigsteve** » Fri Apr 25, 2008 8:43 pm

I told Shelley about this news item and she told me that the rivets story was inside knowledge so evidently others have known about it. I don't know what they have to say about it though. Maybe there is some talk about it on Shelley's Titanic sites.

I have known for several years that they suspected the rivets had been made out of inferior metal but this article says that the builders were actually having a major problem getting good steel, and experienced riveters, when it came time to build the Titanic. I was not aware of this until now. Evidently cheap rivets were used in the stern and bow of the Titanic where as both the Olympic and Britannic received the better steel rivets.

Imagine all those people dying because of cheap rivets...?

-1bigsteve (o:

Cemetery Hunter · Post by **Cemetery Hunter** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 10:35 am

The rivets contributed to the diaster. But Titanics hull was made from steel plates if I remember they were some 30 feet long. The metal was heat treated properly for the time period. The cold waters of the North Atlantic made the metal brittle when it struck the iceberg it created fractures in the metal sort of like cracks created in a broken windshield. The assumption that there was a 300 foot gash created by the collision they have since found was false.

augusta · Post by **augusta** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 12:59 pm

BigSteve - The cheap rivets was 'inside information' to a Titanic historical organization? I don't understand why that would be kept under any wraps.

1bigsteve · Post by **1bigsteve** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 4:57 pm

I'm sure Shelley knows more about this than I do but I saw a documentary last year that explained the situation with the rivets. Evidently there were not enough good rivets left after the sister ships were built so the Titanic was given inferior rivets in her bow and stern areas.

-1bigsteve (o:

augusta · Post by **augusta** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 9:26 pm

BigSteve, that was in the show I saw, too. "Inside information" sounds like it was hidden from others. I would not think a historical group would withhold that from the public. Maybe that meant they just knew and never published it. But again, why would that kind of group not publish that interesting, and possibly important, fact?