J/30 Class Association Forums J/30 Forum The Boat, Sails and Equipment Rudder(s)

I wanted to show what my 'regular' router bridge setup looks like. This is something I use often when milling large waney edge wood slabs. The bridge is much larger than needed for the rudder project, but its main purpose is to allow me to mill slabs that are nearly 4' wide.





I used it on the rudder to mill the area under the straps so they would be parallel.

I am trying to decide now if it would be better to drill the oversized holes for the straps now, or wait until the rudder is covered in glass. I can make a case for doing it either way. My plan to isolate these strap holes from the oak is to drill 3/4" diameter holes and follow the West method for isolating fasteners. One advantage to a solid hardwood core is that the core itself can help with loads, whereas the balsa core relies 100% on the glass at all the bearing points. On my old rudder where this was most evident was the hole for the tiller. It had been seriously wallowed out and was another source of water intrusion to the core.

The final holes for the straps will have to wait until the rudder is essentially done and I can position the rudder on the boat with everything pinned up. Without some kind of specialized fixture there are just too many variables to risk bolting this up before I can confirm the fit up.

One thing I wanted to share from this project that would have utility in a bunch of situations is using peel ply over areas of thick filler. I had been trying to fair these added blocks with a putty knife and couldn't get the sticky 404 filler to shape very well. I had some peel ply laying around and simply put it over the area I was trying to fair and the slick nylon let the putty knife easily shape the filler, I could even use my fingers to press and shape the filler. Then just pulled it off after it had cured.