So after the heart ache of knowing that all of this rudder business could have been avoided if I had been more aware of what was going on at the lift, I got down to repairing it. First I removed the rudder assembly from the boat. The heal came off with no issues but the head was on a tapered rudder post. It took some PB Blaster and a lot of hammering to get it free. I brought it home and started to strip off the fiberglass to expose the cast bronze head fitting. It was through bolted in 3 places with the nuts recessed into the rear of the wood rudder. The slot was then sealed up with a resin/wood filler mixture. Once all the bolts were extracted I could pull off the cast piece.
I could sight down and tell it was both bent and twisted. I took the bend out with a hydraulic press. This brought the piece half way back into true. The twist was proving too difficult to get out and I was worried about breaking the cast piece. I settled on making sure the head was square and true to the rudder and letting the tail twist off the 1/16th of an inch. I set the piece in thickened epoxy and bolted and clamped it.
I will sand and fill where needed and fill the nut voids with thickened epoxy. I will take it back to the boat this weekend to re-insert and allow me to square up the tiller. The head has almost certainly moved as well and will need to be re-centered. Once that is all done I will seal the wood and cover in fiber glass, fairing to a level finish ready for paint. All that can happen at home again during the next week before i re-install for good the following weekend. 2 years ago this job would have terrified me. Now, a little knowledge and a lot of epoxy goes along way.
No comments:
Post a Comment