I have an application where brass or aluminium rivnuts don't seem to me to be a good idea. It's to hold a steel panel on a bathing platform on a canal boat. It's not a salty environment but it is pretty permanently wet and the panel and the bathing platform are both steel.
The previous owner had welded (badly) nuts inside the platform some of which broke free and made taking it apart rather difficult!
I'm looking at ways to fix the panel which aren't susceptible to a similar problem and rivnuts would seem to be a possible approach.
I do have reasonable access to the inside of the bathing platform when the steel panel is removed so I don't actually need a 'blind' fixing.
There are several places selling stainless steel rivnuts but none selling kits with the insertion tool with stainless steel rivnuts. All the kits with an insertion tool have aluminium or brass rivnuts which makes me wonder whether stainless ones are too hard for a standard insertion tool. Does anyone have any opinions on this, or even experience of using stainless rivnuts?
Any other ideas for fixing the panel would be welcome too, it doesn't need huge strength as it's horizontal and gravity keeps it in place, the fixings need to locate it and compress some sort of seal (though it has never sealed properly in the past so I have an automatic bilge pump keeping the bathing platform reasonably empty).