The 2 x 4 that the lumberyard gave me sat out in the rain for a few weeks, so it's wet. -- Really wet, and it weighs a ton. The cassette, right now is heavier than the rudder. I bet it'll lose 5 pounds when it really dries out. To help that along, I'm putting the cassette inside the house, tonight....in my bathroom, which is the warmest room in the house.
-
Ahoy and Welcome to the New SSS Forums!!
As you can see, we have migrated our old forums to new software. All your old posts, threads, attachments, and messages should be here. If you see anything out of place or have any questions, please scroll to the very bottom of the page and click "Contact Us" and leave a note with as much detail as possible.
You should be able to login with your old credentials. If you have any issues, try resetting your password before clicking the Contact Us link.
Cheers - Bryan
Getting Ready for SHTP 2021
- Thread starter AlanH
- Start date
Today started off with sanding down the side I slathered with microballoons in epoxy, yesterday. Truth is, I should have waited another day for the epoxy to harden some more, but I did what I could.
The next order of business was to get out the circular saw and cut back the leading edge of the blade, the part that sits in the cassette.
Measure twice, cut once!...I measured about four times! I wanted 1 1/2 inches of cutback, which is half of one of the boards that make up the core.
Next was to trim the very top of the rudder, flush. Easy peasy. Oh, that's the "before I cut it" photo....
The next order of business was to get out the circular saw and cut back the leading edge of the blade, the part that sits in the cassette.
Measure twice, cut once!...I measured about four times! I wanted 1 1/2 inches of cutback, which is half of one of the boards that make up the core.
Next was to trim the very top of the rudder, flush. Easy peasy. Oh, that's the "before I cut it" photo....
Now I flipped the rudder over and mixed up more microballoons in epoxy and slathered that all over the parts of the blade that will be underwater.
As I write this, it's catalyzing outside, hopefully it will be firm enough for me to bring inside, around 6:30..
I got the itch to see if the cassette and rudder play nice together. Since I added that little shim strip, I figured that everything would fit, now... Drum Roll, please! TA-DAAAA!
Here it is, pushed forward in the cassette. The cutback is exactly the same as the thickness of the forward piece of solid wood in the cassette, so the leading edge of the underwater blade is right in line with the front of the cassette. The gudgeons will place the axis of rotation of the system about an inch forward of that, which is not ideal, but it's not that different from, say a J-27 or J-29/J-30 rudder. If I hadn't cut back the upper part of the blade, the leading edge would be 2 1/2 inches behind the axis of rotation. Can you say "unbalanced"? The very first emergency rudder that I made was like that, and it steered the Ranger 29 I had at the time, but Damn that thing was hard to move.
The plywood for the cassette has a bit of warp to it, so the box is smaller in the middle and a scooch wider at the aft end. That means the rudder, as it sits right now, would have some slop to it, inside the cassette. I need to get fiberglass around the aft edge of the blade in the upper part, anyway, I'll just just use leftover heavy triaxial, instead of the lightweight 6 ounce I have lying around. That will add a bit of thickness back there, and tighten up the fit.
That empty space in the cassette at the back end of the rudder is where the "jammer" will go, to push the rudder forward in the cassette.
As I write this, it's catalyzing outside, hopefully it will be firm enough for me to bring inside, around 6:30..
I got the itch to see if the cassette and rudder play nice together. Since I added that little shim strip, I figured that everything would fit, now... Drum Roll, please! TA-DAAAA!
Here it is, pushed forward in the cassette. The cutback is exactly the same as the thickness of the forward piece of solid wood in the cassette, so the leading edge of the underwater blade is right in line with the front of the cassette. The gudgeons will place the axis of rotation of the system about an inch forward of that, which is not ideal, but it's not that different from, say a J-27 or J-29/J-30 rudder. If I hadn't cut back the upper part of the blade, the leading edge would be 2 1/2 inches behind the axis of rotation. Can you say "unbalanced"? The very first emergency rudder that I made was like that, and it steered the Ranger 29 I had at the time, but Damn that thing was hard to move.
The plywood for the cassette has a bit of warp to it, so the box is smaller in the middle and a scooch wider at the aft end. That means the rudder, as it sits right now, would have some slop to it, inside the cassette. I need to get fiberglass around the aft edge of the blade in the upper part, anyway, I'll just just use leftover heavy triaxial, instead of the lightweight 6 ounce I have lying around. That will add a bit of thickness back there, and tighten up the fit.
That empty space in the cassette at the back end of the rudder is where the "jammer" will go, to push the rudder forward in the cassette.
Today I rounded off the edges of the cassette...the top four inches, the bottom four inches and a four-inch wide area in the middle. The cassette got wrapped with 4-inch glass tape, 3x around at the top and bottom and 2x around in the middle. I wet out the wood, first...as I did for the rudder, and then laid on the tape. Pics as soon as my cell phone charges up.
This thing is bombproof.
I'm almost out of epoxy... It's sitting outside under a "tent" again, as the weatherman says there's a 50% chance of rain, tonight.
This thing is bombproof.
I'm almost out of epoxy... It's sitting outside under a "tent" again, as the weatherman says there's a 50% chance of rain, tonight.
the BEFORE pic...
As you can see, I didn't put down a sheet of plastic on the ground under the sawhorses....and sure enough, I knocked the cassette off, twice, no less, while I was fiberglassing. You'd think I'd learn, but NOOOooooo. That's where the dirt came from.
It'll still be very strong, but gaaaaa...
As you can see, I didn't put down a sheet of plastic on the ground under the sawhorses....and sure enough, I knocked the cassette off, twice, no less, while I was fiberglassing. You'd think I'd learn, but NOOOooooo. That's where the dirt came from.
It'll still be very strong, but gaaaaa...
Today was spent on two things...
1.) getting the upper part of the blade "wrapped" on the front and back edges, and
2.) making the gudgeons for the cassette and attaching them
Starting with #1... two days ago I went up to TAP Plastics in San Mateo and got plenty of 4-inch fiberglass tape. That went 'round the front edge. Do you remember that I needed to thicken the aft edge, that goes into the cassette, because the cassette plywood has a bit of a warp to it? I used a layer of 24 ounce triaxial cloth....had some left over from covering the body of the rudder with it... with the glass tape over that to cover most (not all) of the aft edge. The back 2 inches of the rudder will be 1/4 inch thicker, now. This was all covered with wax paper (epoxy doesn't bond to wax paper) and then clamped to make sure the glass went 'round the hard corners.
That's a motley assortment of clamps. The thick boards on the bottom of that photo (which is the aft edge) are leftovers of the redwood used to make the body of the rudder from.
Oh, I got a few scraps of 6 ounce cloth onto the very bottom of the blade, just to help protect it, and water-seal it. It'll need sanding.
1.) getting the upper part of the blade "wrapped" on the front and back edges, and
2.) making the gudgeons for the cassette and attaching them
Starting with #1... two days ago I went up to TAP Plastics in San Mateo and got plenty of 4-inch fiberglass tape. That went 'round the front edge. Do you remember that I needed to thicken the aft edge, that goes into the cassette, because the cassette plywood has a bit of a warp to it? I used a layer of 24 ounce triaxial cloth....had some left over from covering the body of the rudder with it... with the glass tape over that to cover most (not all) of the aft edge. The back 2 inches of the rudder will be 1/4 inch thicker, now. This was all covered with wax paper (epoxy doesn't bond to wax paper) and then clamped to make sure the glass went 'round the hard corners.
That's a motley assortment of clamps. The thick boards on the bottom of that photo (which is the aft edge) are leftovers of the redwood used to make the body of the rudder from.
Oh, I got a few scraps of 6 ounce cloth onto the very bottom of the blade, just to help protect it, and water-seal it. It'll need sanding.
Last edited:
#2...making the gudgeons...
I made these out of the same douglas fir that the cassette pieces are made from. This sat in my study, just below the heater in the ceiling so it dried out a little. You can see the shape pencilled in. The holes are for short lengths of s.s. thick-wall tubing that will be what the pintle pins go through. I got one of them a little off center, so I trimmed the piece a bit. It's now about 1/4 inch narrower than the other one, so that will be the top gudgeon.
Here they are, trimmed, sanded and stuck on the cassette with epoxy. The distance between the bottom surfaces has to be 504 m.m. I know because I have the class rudder in my garage, and measured that. I must have checked that 504 m.m. distance fifteen times.
The gudgeon edges/corners where it meets the cassette have now been faired a bit with epoxy and wood dough. It's been tabbed in with pieces of 1-inch glass tape. When the epoxy kicks off, they'll be pretty solidly attached....nowhere near solid enough to take a rudder load, but solid enough that a random knock won't dislodge them.
The wood gudgeons are 1 1/8 inch thick. Actually the top one is 1 1/8. The bottom one is 1 1/4. Yeah, well...my table saw isn't the most accurate tool in the whole world. The thicker, wider gudgeon will be on the bottom.
The piece of aluminum is just a sighting guide to help me eyeball that everything is straight and lined up.
I made these out of the same douglas fir that the cassette pieces are made from. This sat in my study, just below the heater in the ceiling so it dried out a little. You can see the shape pencilled in. The holes are for short lengths of s.s. thick-wall tubing that will be what the pintle pins go through. I got one of them a little off center, so I trimmed the piece a bit. It's now about 1/4 inch narrower than the other one, so that will be the top gudgeon.
Here they are, trimmed, sanded and stuck on the cassette with epoxy. The distance between the bottom surfaces has to be 504 m.m. I know because I have the class rudder in my garage, and measured that. I must have checked that 504 m.m. distance fifteen times.
The gudgeon edges/corners where it meets the cassette have now been faired a bit with epoxy and wood dough. It's been tabbed in with pieces of 1-inch glass tape. When the epoxy kicks off, they'll be pretty solidly attached....nowhere near solid enough to take a rudder load, but solid enough that a random knock won't dislodge them.
The wood gudgeons are 1 1/8 inch thick. Actually the top one is 1 1/8. The bottom one is 1 1/4. Yeah, well...my table saw isn't the most accurate tool in the whole world. The thicker, wider gudgeon will be on the bottom.
The piece of aluminum is just a sighting guide to help me eyeball that everything is straight and lined up.
Last edited:
Finally, here's a view of my sophisticated workshop.
I'm out of epoxy, darnit. Allan Steel has been closed for the holidays so I couldn't get the s.s. pipe. Ah, well... I can make another run to TAP Plastics and Allan Steel this week, and there will be an essentially complete system ready to view for the E-Rudder seminar.
There won't be a tiller, or tiller brackets, there will still probably be a few bits of glassing to do, and it won't be painted yet, but folks will be able to see exactly what I did.
I'm out of epoxy, darnit. Allan Steel has been closed for the holidays so I couldn't get the s.s. pipe. Ah, well... I can make another run to TAP Plastics and Allan Steel this week, and there will be an essentially complete system ready to view for the E-Rudder seminar.
There won't be a tiller, or tiller brackets, there will still probably be a few bits of glassing to do, and it won't be painted yet, but folks will be able to see exactly what I did.
Last edited:
I went by Allan Steel this morning and got the s.s. thick-walled pipe inserts that will be attached to the gudgeons and slip around the pintle pins. I have some plastic material that I know fits nicely over the pintle pins on the Wildcat, I'm using it for pintle bushings right now on the "regular" rudder. These sections of s.s. pipe have just big enough an inside diameter that the plastic slips inside, so I can use a couple of inches of this stuff for bushings on the E-rudder. The holes I drilled in the wood will be enlarged....they're probably about 1/8th of an inch too small (on purpose)...with a rasp and my Dremel, and then I'll epoxy the inserts in there, and the plastic bushings into the inserts.
I set things in place, traced lines and so on, this morning. whooiiie...the s.s. pipe inserts are big-gish. I'll have to place them a little further "out" on the wood gudgeons than I might have liked, due to their size. That's all right, They'll be wrapped 2x with fiberglass and 6x with unidirectional carbon fiber.
35 minutes with a hand saw, rasp attachment on my drill, and the rotary tool, and the inserts fit as planned.
I picked up a nice straight 3/4 inch hardwood dowel and some JB Weld at the hardware store today. I'll "weld" the inserts into the gudgeon wood tonight, and use the dowel....which fits inside the inserts, to keep them lined up just right.. JB Weld is an epoxy product which is preposterously expensive, per volume. It's an epoxy paste mix reinforced with steel. They claim a 5,000 lb fully set strength, and it bonds to both wood and metal. Considering as I used a patch 2 inches x 2 inches to affix a steel loop/patch to a 300 pound stone for the Highland Games a few years ago, and a whole lot of brutishly strong guys have carried that stone hither thither and yon without the JB Weld failing, I think it's pretty strong.
One layer of fiberglass tape will go over the s.s. inserts, and then a 4, 5, 6 of layers of unidirectional carbon straps will go on top of that. A couple of the straps will go around the whole cassette. Since I'm out of epoxy and don't really have time to get to TAP plastics before Saturday, This is what y'all will see on Saturday at the seminar.
I picked up a nice straight 3/4 inch hardwood dowel and some JB Weld at the hardware store today. I'll "weld" the inserts into the gudgeon wood tonight, and use the dowel....which fits inside the inserts, to keep them lined up just right.. JB Weld is an epoxy product which is preposterously expensive, per volume. It's an epoxy paste mix reinforced with steel. They claim a 5,000 lb fully set strength, and it bonds to both wood and metal. Considering as I used a patch 2 inches x 2 inches to affix a steel loop/patch to a 300 pound stone for the Highland Games a few years ago, and a whole lot of brutishly strong guys have carried that stone hither thither and yon without the JB Weld failing, I think it's pretty strong.
One layer of fiberglass tape will go over the s.s. inserts, and then a 4, 5, 6 of layers of unidirectional carbon straps will go on top of that. A couple of the straps will go around the whole cassette. Since I'm out of epoxy and don't really have time to get to TAP plastics before Saturday, This is what y'all will see on Saturday at the seminar.
Last edited:
This morning the s.s. inserts were bedded in a goodly supply of JB Weld steel-reinforced epoxy, with 3/4 inch dowel running between the two inserts to keep them lined up. That will kick off by tonight and should be solid by tomorrow morning. JB Weld is so preposterously strong that I could probably sail with it, like that, but ah...no.
After picking up Taz! 's e-rudder and blade, I'm seriously considering building a wrapped 'glass and carbon cassette for this rudder. I'll finish what I've got here 'cause it's almost done and it will surely work really well. It's actually not as heavy as I thought it was. I just weighed it on my digital bathroom scale and that says 13.1 pounds. Hmmmmmm. I bet I can cut at least 6-8 of those out, with minimal loss of strength. I'm happy with the blade, though. It's 22 pounds. This will probably be sometime in the future as I need to finish this up and move on to other things. I'll be going to Hawaii in 2022, not 2020 so I have plenty of time. Anyway, the point of this thread was to show people who don't have a ton of $$ but have access to basic tools, that they can build a strong, serviceable E-rudder for up to a 25 -30 foot boat.
The Wildcat is 26 feet and 4200 pounds. I'm pretty sure that this rudder would steer an Olson 30 or a Wilderness 30...Hawkfarm, Express 27, Olson 25 and so on. The same basic technology can be increased in size by 15-20% to steer an Olson 911-S, Catalina 30, Yankee 30...things like that. That's proven with the earlier rudder I built with essentially the same technology, that steers Skye, which is a Capo 30 and will be their emergency rudder setup for the next Pac Cup. Going up from there, I don't know....out of my area of expertise!
If you vacuum-bag and use a lot of carbon, you can save a lot of weight.....but at a lot of expense.
The Wildcat is 26 feet and 4200 pounds. I'm pretty sure that this rudder would steer an Olson 30 or a Wilderness 30...Hawkfarm, Express 27, Olson 25 and so on. The same basic technology can be increased in size by 15-20% to steer an Olson 911-S, Catalina 30, Yankee 30...things like that. That's proven with the earlier rudder I built with essentially the same technology, that steers Skye, which is a Capo 30 and will be their emergency rudder setup for the next Pac Cup. Going up from there, I don't know....out of my area of expertise!
If you vacuum-bag and use a lot of carbon, you can save a lot of weight.....but at a lot of expense.
Last edited:
Not much has happened since the get-together on the 11th, but today I wrapped the gudgeons with fiberglass tape and linear carbon fiber. You can't put carbon fiber straight on stainless steel, you get corrosion thattaway. Well, the metal inserts are epoxied into the wood cutouts with JB Weld, which is sillystrong. I mixed up some epoxy and wood dust and made some spooge to goosh in around the edges of the metal/wood interface to make things smoother. Then I laid on two layers of 1.5 inch wide fiberglass tape in epoxy. The fiberglass tape isolates the s.s. from the carbon fiber. That got covered by 6 layers of linear carbon fiber, cut into 1.5 inch -wide tapes.... two of which were long enough to wrap the whole box. Here is is, clamped down to ensure good contact and kicking off with wax paper used as a release layer.
Close-up. I clamped, squeezed, pushed...clamped and walked away...came back to squeeze some more. There's good bonding between the carbon layers, and the fiberglass that wraps the cassette.
When the epoxy kicks off, this will be preposterously strong. I'll un-clamp and pull off the wax paper in the morning.
Close-up. I clamped, squeezed, pushed...clamped and walked away...came back to squeeze some more. There's good bonding between the carbon layers, and the fiberglass that wraps the cassette.
When the epoxy kicks off, this will be preposterously strong. I'll un-clamp and pull off the wax paper in the morning.
Last edited:
OK, it's un-clamped and un-wax-papered. bonding over the top of the steel insert is solid. It will need some trimming and grinding with a little wheel on the rotary tool. some of the strapping on the lower gudgeon, down on the box is not well bonded to the cassette. I think I will cut a couple of 1-inch wide straps, maybe about 18 inches long and apply them to the lower gudgeon. This time I'll clamp a piece of plywood over the strap to keep even pressure over the whole thing. Not that it's not strong...it is, but what the heck.
Last edited:
Today, two more layers of carbon fiber went on the lower gudgeon and wrapped around the back. They're clamped onto the cassette to ensure good bonding.
The last bits of "thickening" biaxial glass went on the upper part of the blade. After that kicks off and there's a little bit of sanding, it's all more-or-less ready for paint. The end is in sight.
The last bits of "thickening" biaxial glass went on the upper part of the blade. After that kicks off and there's a little bit of sanding, it's all more-or-less ready for paint. The end is in sight.
Since mobility is important for us, I've sometimes looked at kayaking lifejackets...
https://www.seakayakermag.com/best-kayak-life-jackets/
https://www.seakayakermag.com/best-kayak-life-jackets/
I think I'm turning this into the Getting Ready for SHTP 2022 thread.
The rudder blade got a coat of paint, and the cassette, as well, this weekend. The blade got the last of my West Marine white glossy polyurethane. The cassette got flat, ugly battleship gray latex, that I used to use on cabersl. Beauty is not the point, here...protection from water and UV is the point. So except for the tiller brackets, the E-rudder is now done.
ON TO THE NEXT PROJECT...
Yesterday I made some progress on the hatch cover/hood.
I made the cover for the Santana 3030 I had in 2004, and it's a tich' too small for the Wildcat. It's been sitting my garage, or Max's all these years. It's constructed from a sandwich of pink home insulation foam epoxied between doorskins. The doorskin's plywood was delaminating in a few places and needed to be re-glued or replaced. DONE. I needed to make the base wider to fit on the Wildcats companionway. Those are the plywood flanges along the bottom. I'd always wanted to make the back rim, across the top stronger, to be able to withstand a good hit from the boom, so I did that, as well.
Now it need some more epoxy/wood dough fillets at the end of the cover/flange, and some 4-inch fiberglass tape to strengthen that joint. When that cures, I'll flip it over, sand down/round off the inside edge of the flange and get a strip of 4-inch tape on that, as well. The 60 pound bag of concrete is there to hold the hood down, solidly on the flanges.
The acrylic windows are sealed with silicon, and there are bolts, washers and nuts that hold it on to the cover. The bare end of those bolts had a history of gouging scratches in the top of my head, so I took the grinder to 'em and ground them down flat with the nuts.
The final bit will be a coat of paint, and it'll be ready to go on the Wildcat. This thing is not glamorous. It's not a pro-job, but it's surprisingly strong and surprisingly light.
I need to make a hatchboard cover to go in front of this hood, as well. That will be laminated up from 3 layers of doorskins and bent slightly over a frame, so that it's not completely flat.
The rudder blade got a coat of paint, and the cassette, as well, this weekend. The blade got the last of my West Marine white glossy polyurethane. The cassette got flat, ugly battleship gray latex, that I used to use on cabersl. Beauty is not the point, here...protection from water and UV is the point. So except for the tiller brackets, the E-rudder is now done.
ON TO THE NEXT PROJECT...
Yesterday I made some progress on the hatch cover/hood.
I made the cover for the Santana 3030 I had in 2004, and it's a tich' too small for the Wildcat. It's been sitting my garage, or Max's all these years. It's constructed from a sandwich of pink home insulation foam epoxied between doorskins. The doorskin's plywood was delaminating in a few places and needed to be re-glued or replaced. DONE. I needed to make the base wider to fit on the Wildcats companionway. Those are the plywood flanges along the bottom. I'd always wanted to make the back rim, across the top stronger, to be able to withstand a good hit from the boom, so I did that, as well.
Now it need some more epoxy/wood dough fillets at the end of the cover/flange, and some 4-inch fiberglass tape to strengthen that joint. When that cures, I'll flip it over, sand down/round off the inside edge of the flange and get a strip of 4-inch tape on that, as well. The 60 pound bag of concrete is there to hold the hood down, solidly on the flanges.
The acrylic windows are sealed with silicon, and there are bolts, washers and nuts that hold it on to the cover. The bare end of those bolts had a history of gouging scratches in the top of my head, so I took the grinder to 'em and ground them down flat with the nuts.
The final bit will be a coat of paint, and it'll be ready to go on the Wildcat. This thing is not glamorous. It's not a pro-job, but it's surprisingly strong and surprisingly light.
I need to make a hatchboard cover to go in front of this hood, as well. That will be laminated up from 3 layers of doorskins and bent slightly over a frame, so that it's not completely flat.
Last edited:
I plan to make Jan Alkema's "RHM" Rudder Head Mount pendulum oar, which you can read about, here:
http://www.windautopilot.de/docs/alkema/RHM-USD.pdf
I'll combine that with his "USD" UpSide Down windvane, as modified by Mister Vee, and re-modified by me. That needs to be in place and tested before next summers LongPac.
http://www.windautopilot.de/docs/alkema/RHM-USD.pdf
I'll combine that with his "USD" UpSide Down windvane, as modified by Mister Vee, and re-modified by me. That needs to be in place and tested before next summers LongPac.