05-11-2006, 05:40 PM
The rudder box needs to be complete this weekend. From the conglomerate whole, do I need to fiberglass this unit, or will epoxy alone be enough? Or should I just throw a gob o' polyurethane on it and call it a done deal?
05-11-2006, 05:40 PM
05-11-2006, 06:15 PM
There is quite a lot of stress on the rudder box under normal working loads. :roll: 
hock: I would tend to use epoxy but I would also make sure that the wood surfaces were not really smooth that join each other. Rough them up a bit with about 50-60 grit first. That way when you screw those plywood panels on the solid pieces they will be certain to have enough epoxy in the joints to make it really solid. Before glueing it up I would check the rudder fit in the box. I found that a couple large flat (6" diameter) polyethene washers (Clear storage container lids cut to size and double face taped inside where the bolt hole would go thru the middle of them.) would help to make the rudder fit better and have less slop in the box. I coated all the interior surfaces with epoxy first so that they would be well protected and then finished them off before assembly. I masked off the contact portions of the panels and the edges of the solid wood pieces so that they didn't get finished and then epoxied the beegeebers out of everything else. The rudder just slips smoothly between the washers and doesn't wiggle in the box. Also saves wear on the surfaces.
I saw one rudder box where the builder had drilled out oversized pivot hole and lined it with a short piece of PVC tube epoxied into both sides of the box and another short length in the rudder itself. It solved his slop problem and eliminated any wear or water incursion possibilities. I thought that was pretty cool! His was one of the rudder vibration issues we addressed.
hock: I would tend to use epoxy but I would also make sure that the wood surfaces were not really smooth that join each other. Rough them up a bit with about 50-60 grit first. That way when you screw those plywood panels on the solid pieces they will be certain to have enough epoxy in the joints to make it really solid. Before glueing it up I would check the rudder fit in the box. I found that a couple large flat (6" diameter) polyethene washers (Clear storage container lids cut to size and double face taped inside where the bolt hole would go thru the middle of them.) would help to make the rudder fit better and have less slop in the box. I coated all the interior surfaces with epoxy first so that they would be well protected and then finished them off before assembly. I masked off the contact portions of the panels and the edges of the solid wood pieces so that they didn't get finished and then epoxied the beegeebers out of everything else. The rudder just slips smoothly between the washers and doesn't wiggle in the box. Also saves wear on the surfaces.I saw one rudder box where the builder had drilled out oversized pivot hole and lined it with a short piece of PVC tube epoxied into both sides of the box and another short length in the rudder itself. It solved his slop problem and eliminated any wear or water incursion possibilities. I thought that was pretty cool! His was one of the rudder vibration issues we addressed.
05-11-2006, 07:10 PM
05-11-2006, 08:03 PM
05-11-2006, 09:01 PM