I am refurbishing an old rudder. Using the class rudder plan found on this website, the max total thickness is 56.4mm or 2.24". The rudder I am working on is more like 2.5" thick. Before I remove all the glass off the rudder to thin it down, does any body have a rudder out of the water that they can measure to confirm the max. thickness. Thanks, ML

Mike, I think you'll find that the original rudders all came from TPI in a "fat" condition. A lot of folks on the Chesapeake have had their rudders faired by grinding a strip off the middle of the chord, then re-laying glass to bring it close to the designed profile. Finally, fairing compound is used to bring it up to the template. (N.B. this is a secondary bond and not as strong as the original layup of the rudder -- there have also been failures associated with this procedure.)

A few years ago, TPI was selling new rudders for a reasonable price. The original rudder mold had been destroyed in a fire at the TPI factory. They used a faired rudder to splash a new mold and so the new rudders all came out of the mold very fair. I'm not sure if they still have any of those rudders left, or what the price might be.

Mike, for what it's worth, chord on my rudder was short, and the glass layup (after removing gel coat) did not wrap around the leading edge, so the solid core sheet (some kind of thermoset resin?) was exposed - I think a weakness in design/construction. I built up leading edge, brought radius to spec and reinforced front. Thickness is only a few mm high on each side, after fairing with epoxy (thinner than original gelcoat). I didn't think its worth planing down to balsa. Core inside gudgeon bolt holes was cracked. Bored-filled-re-drilled holes to eliminate leaking. Dried-out rudder lost 3-4 lbs. Now weighs about 77lb. w/hardware.

Thanks for the replies. The old rudder I am working on sounds almost exactly the same, down to the cracks in the gudeons core and the poor design of the "thermo-resin" core(it is cracked and pulled away from the balsa core). I won't worry about it being a little thick. (seems we all get a little "thicker" with age!)
Mike

A few months ago, I called TPI to price a new rudder. Apparently the $1000 price tag listed on the equipment suppliers page was wrong. They couldn't give me an exact price, but said it was on the order of $2500.

Ryan Pierce, #337
rdpierce@pobox.com