A Bit More Rudder

This is the rudder progerss so far.

 The bottom bearing cup and spiggot

 Using coins to give the right spacing for welding

 The space created for the weld

The plate welded which bolts on the bottom of the rudder

Disassembled

The rudder mounted ready for the
rudder shaft to be connected at the top

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Door Furnature

I had a call fron the wood shop to tell me he was ready for the door furnature. So I thourght Id go to a local long established iron moungary store.  My needs wernt difficult, or so I thourght.  I wanted some 3" polished SS hinges, and a SS rebater door lock.  All they had was tat, the hinges were so bad IMO it was a waste of SS and no rebated locks at all.  This is supposed to be a specialist shop.  I then went to B&Q, Homebase and Howdens.  In 2 of these the concept of SS seemed to be alien.  They did a huge range of nasty plated stuff, but not a whiff of SS, and as for rebate lock......Well?  Howdens did have some very nice SS hinges but they wanted over £13 a pair and that was on my trade account!

I resolved to go on the net. I like to support local shops where possible, but they really have to do more.

A Net search turned up a company called e-Hardware  Absolutly brilliant!!  and the even better part quite local to me and were happy to indulge my fussyness in person.  In the end I got EXACTLY what I wanted and even some concealed  door latches I didnt even know existed.

So, excelent quality products, brilliant service and great prices......... How great?  Well the exact same hinges that I liked at Howdens were at e-Hardware for £3.50

I will post pics of this stuff when I get the doors.

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Lets Build A Rudder

There is a sister boat to mine.  The owner reported that the rudder design he felt was poor and needed improvoing.  The rudder that comes with the boat is a plain flat one.

A bit of reserach came up with several designs that are better and give more turn for your buck.  In the end I decided to go for a type know as a Schilling, or Fishtail rudder.  It has several other names but these are the most common.  Having read a great deal about them and the maths involed I came up with my design.

Here is the whole rudder in parts form.

Once all marked up I tack welded the parts together so I could drill them all together.

The small parts are the attachment parts

Then the drilling.  The large holes are to take the rudder stock pole which is 50mm.

 

Once drilled I tack welded the parts together.  When making things it like this its best to tack it all just in case it need altering.

Once its all together its fully welded.

Once the supporting ribs are in place the outer skin needs attaching.  This a 4mm sheet of steel and its best forced over the ribs cold to prevent any distortion that heat might cause.  The flow over the rudder would be affected by this.  This is a slow and gentle process using g-clamps to ease it into place.

1st side done

The inside

 This is the finished rudder

The two smaller parts earlier will be used later on the rudder pivots and will bolt on tho the top and bottom of this part.  This is to enable the rudder to be removed if the the drive shaft needs drawing out.  More on that soon.

Also on the go at them moment is the construction of the pram hood.  Again more on this as there is something to show.

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