Rudder head construction

Here's the construction sequence for the rudder head.  I had a couple goals I was trying to meet.  I wanted to line the uphaul/downhaul line channels with copper pipe to reduce friction, and wanted to laminate the center section first to make it easy to clean up and finish areas that will be hard to get at later when fully assembled

I fussed around with the layout for the line channels for a while before deciding on the route shown below.  I wanted the openings to exit the front of the rudder head as near the tiller as possible, and I wanted the rear exit to be gentle, so the line would not need to take a right-angle turn there.  Using the flexible copper pipe, here's what I decided on.

Heres' the exit on the front of the rudder head

And here's the back side.  Because of the thickness of my rudder, I added one layer of 4mm ply in the center of the lamination.

 Here's the glue-up of just the center layers of the rudder head

After the epoxy cured it was time to clean up the edges and trim the tubes to length.

A small hacksaw made quick work of the protruding tubes

And a bit of sanding smooths them down nicely.  I will further round the edges before running the uphaul/downhaul lines over them.

I used epoxy/graphite mixture to match what I did on the cheek pieces

And then laminated the complete assembly.