i am making a rudder

[AlanH]

Since no spare J-29/J-30 rudders seem to be forthcoming, I'm going to make my own new wood core rudder.

The basic idea is to build a core of 2 inch thich, 1 3/4 inch wide doug fir strips. They're cut from straight grain doug fir 2 x 8's. Then you randomize the strips by reversing a few and mixing them up so that the strength in the rudder goes everywhichway, and also, in case any water gets in there, any distortion in one strip isn't carried out through the whole rudder as it would be if it was all one piece of wood.

Glue the strips together into a 2-inch thick, 16 inch wide, 7 foot long board.

make a NACA foil jig for a the rudder, and use the router on the jig to form the foil.

Sand. Fair. Sand

overlay with epoxy in 8-10 oz cloth...maybe consider putting a layer of kevlar along the leading edge.

sand, fair sand..paint.

Make hardware... put on antifouling, mount on boat.

I will document all this with photographs, etc.

OK, $208 later, for straight grain doug fir, plus some re-sawing
$40 for two more bar clamps that are bigger than 1 foot span ( I had two already)
$50 for a Ryobi 1.75 hp router of of craigslist, and we are on our way.