flying cedar shavings

photo 1 :  western cedar rudder blank ( got a little heavy with the epoxy an micro but I wanted to make
                 sure that I didn't have ANY voids. )

photo 2 :  after an hour with a power planer. ....fun time shaping a Clark Y airfoil from nice smelling
                wood.

Photo 3 : finished shape

Photo 4 : detail showing my emergency tiller option.  I decided to just machine a hex head on the end
               so that I can make an emergency tiller by just welding a deep well socket onto a tube.

It's a shame that these rudders have to live their lives under the back of the boat. Seeing how nice they look makes me want to varnish them and use them as figureheads. Next step is to lay a little kevlar along the leading edge and sheath the whole thing with triaxial glass and epoxy.

Bonus: I plan on sweeping up the pile of cedar shavings, sewing them into a big pillow case and making a dog bed for Daisy.

Targa bar corners

To help with shaping, I used a sharpy pen to mark a center line guide curve on the ends of the foam

I stayed up many nights trying to come up with a brilliant way to create the 8 inch radius corners of the targa bar.  Although my method allowed me to create a nice transition, it required the cutting, gluing and shaping of over 20 pieces of corecell foam.  The end result turned out nice but this was mainly due to persistence not brilliance.  Sometimes, simple solutions are difficult to find.  The next step will be to laminate the exterior of both targa bar uprights then glass the entire assembly onto the stern of the boat.

rudder boxes

The "Jeffa" spherical rudder shaft bearings are being bonded into the kick up rudder boxes.

The lower bearings came pre bonded into large diameter fiberglass tubes and require generous fillets with multiple layers of triaxial glass over this; bonding them into position.

The upper rudder shaft bearings will be installed in the sub bulkhead seen on the rudder box on the left. ( it hasn't been glued in place so it's just sitting a little crooked in the box )

Test fitting the targa bar.

It was a bit of a balancing act positioning the targa bar pieces in place.  Hidden from view on top of the cabin are two car batteries sitting on top of the ends of the two 2 x 4's acting as a counterweights which allowed me to hang the targa cross bar in place.

Part of the reason for performing this trial fit is to determine the shape of the two corners.  This will no doubt require some creative foam shaping. Once these two corner core pieces are formed, I'll pull the uprights down, glass them and reinstall them for the final install.

Rudder blanks

I decided to use a lightweight ceder core for the rudders.  The challenge becomes working out a method of sandwiching the rudder shaft between the cedar stock so that it can then be shaped, sheathed and vacuum encapsulated with epoxy.

My plan is to create two planks from a total of 20 pieces of 3/4 x 4 in cedar.  After this photo was taken, I mixed up a batch of cabocil and epoxy then slathered each edge and face with the mixture then placed the entire laminated block into a vacuum bag to insure that both planks were bonded well.

Next step will be to take a little time with a chisel and mallet cutting out a hollow portion that will allow the rudder shaft to be positioned between the two blanks.  Then another session of epoxy goo and vac bagging the cedar blanks over the rudder post to form a block with the rudder shaft in the middle of it. Once done, the fun part becomes shaping of  that the streamlined profile with a power planer.......at least that's the plan.