Saturday, June 28, 2014

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.


5 comments:

  1. Very nice modification to the plans! Make sure to post this on the SCA SCAMP message board:-)

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  2. Dave, awesome work here…very impressive. Love the way you did this. Brent

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  3. Thanks, guys. I like the way it worked out, and I've posted it on the SCA forum for reference for future builders.

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  4. Hello! First off, THANK YOU for your documentation on your build. It is very helpful. I am working on my SCAMP kit and have the rudder on my work bench. 2 questions: 1) what tubing size do you recommend? And 2) how much leeway does your rudder have in the rudder headstock (to necessitate another span of plywood in the head)? Thx

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  5. Steve - you're welcome. I looked at the left over tubing and I have two packages in the shop - one marked 1/4 ID, and one marked 3/8 OD. They both seem to be about 9mm outside diameter. Must have been 9mm ply that I cut the channels in as it fit well. I found the rudder head was a tight fit after fiberglassing it, filling the weave, and coating with graphite. The extra 4mm layer gave me enough clearance for a nice fit with a couple plastic washers cut from a milk jug, if I'm remembering correctly. That was about 5 years ago! Good luck with your build!

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