Rudder

Rudder is now under way.  Took a while to draw the layout lines from the plans and then scribe a reasonable curve.  Bought reading glasses to read the fine print on the plans.

rudder is penciled in and 3/8 ply doubled up.  ready for glue.  

The dark spot is residual baking soda from a spill earlier in the construction process.  Will not be finished clear anyways.  High gloss smooth.  

Mock up of water bottle and gym weights, glue tomorrow.  

ADDENDUM - 

The rudder blank was not lying flat enough for my liking, so nailed down the perimeter while the glue sets off.  Stay tuned...

1-4-14 

The rudder came out fine.  I then moved on to the cheeks for the stock.  The plans show a trapezoid with only one right angle not coinciding with any of the lines, and a diagonal to show the angles on the trapezoid.  After trying to mark this onto the plywood for an hour and a half, I gave up and went to bed.  Today,  got up and pulled out the Masonite I had used for the centerboard trunk and made a pattern.  As lines are easily removed, this took far less time, and cut so well that just a little fairing up with sandpaper has given me a nice pattern to work from.  Also discovered a plank of 5.5" mahogany in the garage for the filler blocks.  

rudder stock blank sitting on top of the blade stock.  easy to see how these pieces work together.

ready for shaping.  will trim the little spot in the upper right corner after rudder stock is built.  this area controls the pitch of the blade.  7/8 needs to be forward of the stock for balance.

rudder cheeks, next is the filler block.  and doublers.

Whole assembly mock up.  

Pivot tested.  Time to shape blades, and order hardware. 

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Tiller Rudder pintles and gudgeons

December 26, 2014

The weather was up in the 50s today.  Therefore, I took the opportunity to do a little work on the boat by installing the gudgeons and locating the pintles.  After several measurements with the help of my daughter (this is a two man job), we decided the lower pintle and gudgeon were on center, and just high enough for the rudder cheeks to clear the water while under way, while giving maximum blade depth. An hour or so later, sealed the holes, bolts, and nuts with 5400.  The tiller clears the deck with room to spare, but is not too high.  It also looks as if the chosen length is just right and with a tiller extension will be a pleasure to operate.  We hope we got it right.

Tiller clears the deck.  

Vertical alignment looks ok.  

Just a nice shot.  

Length of the tiller looks good.  I like a slightly larger handle for long rides.  Most steering will be done from the tiller extension.  I will also add an uphaul in addition to the down haul.  It is not on the plans, so will need to be creative. 

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March 9th update rudder assembly and Centerboard shaping

It has been a very long and cold winter in New England.  Working outdoors to do planing, shaping, and fairing of the blades has been impossible due to the weather and family/work schedule.  I have put in for retirement, so time to work on the boat is not far away.  The weekly 60 hour work week gets in the way of these important things.

today - assembled the rudder head stock, and fitted the shaped blade.  Nothing fancy on the shaping,  I simply planed and sanded a reasonable shape to the flat stock so that the thickest sections were about 1/3 back.  Will coat with epoxy and paint when the days get longer and warmer.

Builders of a CS 17 should note that the leading edge of the rudder protrudes slightly forward of the head stock.  When the pintles are added, it will be in line with the pivot point.  

yup, Its snug, but wont take much to loosen up.  A little sanding and then prime and paint.  

Centerboard shaping - 

From the blank, I attached a NACA 0006 series template to the end of the tip and drew a line around the tip.  Then I set up the router to rout grooves to the depth indicated on the template up and down each side.  

template is sitting on the blade, was attached to the tip.  radial lines kept to the ratio were then scribed on the blade and a guide for the router set up. 

Not bad for a first attempt.  A few low spots and some high spots still, but fixable.  the router and electric plane made short work of this.  Then followed up with the wood eraser (7" disc grinder), and palm sander.  

Leading edge needs some attention, and I still need to shape the tip.  Not quite sure what I am going to do here.  Just a simple rounding over?  When the board is raised partially, this will also be a quasi trailing edge.  

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painting the deck attach trim rudder tiller

June 2, 2015
Final coats of polyurethane are being applied to the deck.  This WR-LPU goes on best on cold, damp days, thinned a little with water, and applied with a roller and tipped with a foam brush, out of the wind, on a cold day 48F.   The clean up with water and low VOC is worth the effort.

few brush strokes, and high gloss.

June 7, 2015
I made the tiller extension, and attached the rudder hardware today. I am having thoughts about adding an uphaul to the rudder.  The downhaul cleat was added and I just need to add a few feet of small spectra braid.  The tiller extension is the part that connects the skipper with the boat, and I put a little extra effort into this part.  It is about 2.5 long mahogany stick with a small square of mahogany attached to the end.  I had one of these on my Enterprise many moons ago and it was comfortable for many miles.

Fiberglass mast track ramps were made as well, and hatches installed and bungee attached.

The garage and boat got a good cleaning today while the weather was nice.


June 9, 2015  Rub Rails
Fabricated the rub rails and drilled for location on the boat.  They need a coat of varnish and rain is in the forecast, so they are back in the garage.  I may omit the bungs I usually put in so that I have the ability to easily take the parts off and replace or re-varnish off the boat.  Well see...

may leave the bungs off.   

Port rub rail.

Starboard rail.  I gave each end a little profile. 

I decided NOT to have the rub rails meet at the bow.  I think the look is cleaner from an angle.

Nice.

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