Rudder box

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With the gantry in place it was time to start building the lifting rudder head mechanism. Lifting firstly because I have kids and there is a beach in the harbor at low tides. Secondly because there are some lakes and bays I plan on sailing from where it will come in handy.

This piece gave me some angst but with it 70% complete now I'm fairly confident it'll work well enough to get me sailing. My assumption is I'll be rebuilding some areas once we start sailing but really hoping to focus on the foils.

As with most of Farrout I approached this with a mixture of 4mm mahogany ply, cedar and carbon / glass / epoxy.

It all starts with a dry fit.

Epoxied in some cedar


Checking rudder fit


Checking fit against the gantry


Testing fit with both sides against the rudder.


Some reinforcement on the rudder


Bagging the rudder box


Starting to get there. The tube on top was made by wrapping some carbon around the 1" carbon tube I'm going to use for a tiller


Finally see the whole thing together


Quick break to tape the deck edges. Reading about Dave's split seam early on and considering my likely excursions on the pacific with a lee shore I figure it's worth a little reinforcement here.


Rudder box sides glued and some carbon tube to act as an hinge


Carbon tube with the 3/16" SS rod through


And glued in place with a bunch of mushed up carbon strands epoxied around it. Going to finish up with an extra layer of carbon over the top of the whole thing to beef it up a bit more.


Is it straight? Not sure. Hopefully straight enough!


Comments

  1. TomFebruary 23, 2019 at 9:32 AM

    It's not straight btw but it'll do. Want to go sail and can come back and rebuild areas later if I'm really not happy (fair chance of this area getting a second pass next year!)

    ReplyDelete

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