Well the small drill bit approach did not work. The holes in these brackets are too badly misaligned. I can't tell if this is from when it was originally manufactured, or if somewhere along the line they were bent somehow. So my plan is to drill these all out to 3/4" fill them with epoxy thickened with CS. Then when I do a final assembly I will drill the holes oversized for the bolts again and then install the bolts lathered up in 5200.
These holes are slightly overfilled because I have learned that as soon as you leave the room the air bubbles finally rise up and pop. You can sit there all day and wait for this to happen and try to refill the hole, or you can leave the room so it can get on with the process. Epoxy doesn't shrink, but trapped air can really change the volume as the air slowly escapes.
So the next step is the glasswork. I have to either get on that, or put it off a few days. The shop gets overrun at Christmas with a very large HO race car track.
Remember, Christmas is about toys for boys
Last edited by Coastie; 12/19/1709:14 PM.
Dave Graf
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Ok, This may really be one of those Crazy A.... projects, but if this thing lasts as long as it should, it may be worth the effort. It took all morning to lay out the glass, breather, peel ply and get ready to glass this thing. It took all afternoon to actually glass this thing and then get it under a vacuum. This is a project best done with some extra hands, but they weren't around, so on we went. Remember this blank is just under 70 lbs. and I just had a bunch of hand surgery two months ago, so this was too much fun.
Wetting out the 29 oz. stuff is always fun, but that went ok. adding the next two layers of 10 oz. cloth went ok too. What turned into a near fiasco was flipping this thing to do the 2nd side. What I had not planned for was the position of the vacuum port after the flip, Turned out I was going to flip right on top of the thing. I knew that would be bad so I started moving a wetted out, very heavy rudder and all the cloth, breather, peel ply etc. so that when I rolled the thing over it wouldn't be on the port. That was about 30 minutes of adventure. Got it done though.
Then wetted out the 2nd side and worked through all the layers of cloth. The shape of this rudder adds some complexity because of the 3" step below the bottom gudgeon. I had sorted that out to a point in advance, but it still makes for a higher degree of difficulty.
So everything was wetted out, in place and ready for vacuum. Well I quickly figured out I had damaged the sealer plastic in the fiip onto the vacuum port. So I removed the port, moved it to a new location and I thought I had adequately sealed up the old port hole. Turned on the vacuum pump and started doing the normal stuff trying to figure out where the vacuum leak is. About 20 times around the seal tape, 10 times around the port itself, a couple of times around the vacuum lines and then finally I figured out that the tape over the old vacuum port hole didn't cover the entire hole. So one more piece of tape and then this thing really started to suck as it were.
So it took a good 4 hours to wet it all out and get into a vacuum. I planned that it would take awhile so used the slow hardener. Shop is warm, vacuum is working and West System epoxy is pretty reliable, so in the morning I should have a nice mess to clean up. Then the sanding can begin again. There will be some more glass work since I couldn't figure out how to add the Kevlar felt on the bottom like I wanted to. So once the bottom of the rudder is cleaned up and faired I will do another step to add that felt.
Peeled the bag and did a basic cleanup of the rudder and put it on the scale and it currently weighs 69.6 Lbs., the original standard rudder was 75 Lbs. I would only give myself a C- for my vacuum bag skills. The trailing edge is needing rework and more glass. I suspect that somewhere in the handling and flipping I messed it up. For sure more hands would have made the whole thing go faster and made the flipping much easier. It would also make it easier to blame the flaws on someone else, besides myself. I also checked the finished thickness with the brackets and it is right on the money, maybe 1/16th inch undersized. I could either add another layer of cloth under the brackets,or just leave it as is. I think this project is going to get put away for the time being, because what is next is a little bit of glass work and then a bunch fairing also known as sanding.
I have been busy fairing, reinforcing and sealing this beast of a rudder. It is looking really good. Once I am satisfied that the thing is sealed and faired I will set it aside until I am ready to barrier coat it. I figure the likely places for water to penetrate the glass skin over the long term are the very bottom, the trailing edge, the notch below the bottom bracket and also where the tiller rides on the top from wear. So these areas are getting extra attention and additional coats of epoxy.
The rudder is finished for now. There is some minor fairing to do and I need to drill the holes for the tiller and brackets and then barrier coat it. I will get on that as soon as the reworked brackets are finished. The bottom bracket had a pretty good twist to it making getting a nice tight through hole a little challenging. The fab shop is also boring and bushing these gudgeons and making new pins. This should be a nice tight rudder when it is all reinstalled.
I think you'll be really happy with the balanced rudder. I have one on #140 Ananda and the difference compared to the barn door rudder has been fantastic - much less weather helm especially in 20+ knots.
This is the one I ordered from Competition Composites in Canada: