After setting up this new blog, I remarked to a colleague how surprised I was that the name 'Rivetcounter' hadn't already gone. I thought it would have been snapped up long ago. This is the internet, after all. She wasn't surprised in the least. Which I suppose tells you something about the difference between me and my colleagues - or at least some of them. Of which more anon.
I first heard the term many years ago, long before I had any actual rivets of my own to count, at a model railway club. I don't know what I was doing at the model railway club, as this was years, nay decades, before No.2 son got into the model railway retail trade. It was used disparagingly, by one member of another, which surprised me - after all, if you are into accurate modelling, what finer accolade could there be?
Rivetcounting is about attention to detail beyond the call of duty, and thus seemed entirely appropriate to me, the internet, and the world of old boats.
You may ask, how many rivets does Chertsey have? And the answer, I'm afraid, is that I haven't counted. Yet. But it is something like 'the number it should have minus one', because in place of one, somewhere on the front bend, it has a bloody great nut and bolt instead.
