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Thread: Getting Ready for SHTP 2021

  1. #31
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    35 minutes with a hand saw, rasp attachment on my drill, and the rotary tool, and the inserts fit as planned.

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    I picked up a nice straight 3/4 inch hardwood dowel and some JB Weld at the hardware store today. I'll "weld" the inserts into the gudgeon wood tonight, and use the dowel....which fits inside the inserts, to keep them lined up just right.. JB Weld is an epoxy product which is preposterously expensive, per volume. It's an epoxy paste mix reinforced with steel. They claim a 5,000 lb fully set strength, and it bonds to both wood and metal. Considering as I used a patch 2 inches x 2 inches to affix a steel loop/patch to a 300 pound stone for the Highland Games a few years ago, and a whole lot of brutishly strong guys have carried that stone hither thither and yon without the JB Weld failing, I think it's pretty strong.

    One layer of fiberglass tape will go over the s.s. inserts, and then a 4, 5, 6 of layers of unidirectional carbon straps will go on top of that. A couple of the straps will go around the whole cassette. Since I'm out of epoxy and don't really have time to get to TAP plastics before Saturday, This is what y'all will see on Saturday at the seminar.
    Last edited by AlanH; 01-09-2020 at 12:12 PM.
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  2. #32
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    This morning the s.s. inserts were bedded in a goodly supply of JB Weld steel-reinforced epoxy, with 3/4 inch dowel running between the two inserts to keep them lined up. That will kick off by tonight and should be solid by tomorrow morning. JB Weld is so preposterously strong that I could probably sail with it, like that, but ah...no.
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  3. #33
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    After the emergency steering get-together today I'm feeling a little bit of angst about the weight of my cassette. It's strong as $%^&* but heavy!
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  4. #34
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    After picking up Taz! 's e-rudder and blade, I'm seriously considering building a wrapped 'glass and carbon cassette for this rudder. I'll finish what I've got here 'cause it's almost done and it will surely work really well. It's actually not as heavy as I thought it was. I just weighed it on my digital bathroom scale and that says 13.1 pounds. Hmmmmmm. I bet I can cut at least 6-8 of those out, with minimal loss of strength. I'm happy with the blade, though. It's 22 pounds. This will probably be sometime in the future as I need to finish this up and move on to other things. I'll be going to Hawaii in 2022, not 2020 so I have plenty of time. Anyway, the point of this thread was to show people who don't have a ton of $$ but have access to basic tools, that they can build a strong, serviceable E-rudder for up to a 25 -30 foot boat.

    The Wildcat is 26 feet and 4200 pounds. I'm pretty sure that this rudder would steer an Olson 30 or a Wilderness 30...Hawkfarm, Express 27, Olson 25 and so on. The same basic technology can be increased in size by 15-20% to steer an Olson 911-S, Catalina 30, Yankee 30...things like that. That's proven with the earlier rudder I built with essentially the same technology, that steers Skye, which is a Capo 30 and will be their emergency rudder setup for the next Pac Cup. Going up from there, I don't know....out of my area of expertise!

    If you vacuum-bag and use a lot of carbon, you can save a lot of weight.....but at a lot of expense.
    Last edited by AlanH; 03-09-2020 at 08:09 AM.
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  5. #35
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    Not much has happened since the get-together on the 11th, but today I wrapped the gudgeons with fiberglass tape and linear carbon fiber. You can't put carbon fiber straight on stainless steel, you get corrosion thattaway. Well, the metal inserts are epoxied into the wood cutouts with JB Weld, which is sillystrong. I mixed up some epoxy and wood dust and made some spooge to goosh in around the edges of the metal/wood interface to make things smoother. Then I laid on two layers of 1.5 inch wide fiberglass tape in epoxy. The fiberglass tape isolates the s.s. from the carbon fiber. That got covered by 6 layers of linear carbon fiber, cut into 1.5 inch -wide tapes.... two of which were long enough to wrap the whole box. Here is is, clamped down to ensure good contact and kicking off with wax paper used as a release layer.

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    Close-up. I clamped, squeezed, pushed...clamped and walked away...came back to squeeze some more. There's good bonding between the carbon layers, and the fiberglass that wraps the cassette.

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    When the epoxy kicks off, this will be preposterously strong. I'll un-clamp and pull off the wax paper in the morning.
    Last edited by AlanH; 01-27-2020 at 09:00 AM.
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  6. #36
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    OK, it's un-clamped and un-wax-papered. bonding over the top of the steel insert is solid. It will need some trimming and grinding with a little wheel on the rotary tool. some of the strapping on the lower gudgeon, down on the box is not well bonded to the cassette. I think I will cut a couple of 1-inch wide straps, maybe about 18 inches long and apply them to the lower gudgeon. This time I'll clamp a piece of plywood over the strap to keep even pressure over the whole thing. Not that it's not strong...it is, but what the heck.
    Last edited by AlanH; 03-09-2020 at 08:11 AM.
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  7. #37
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    Today, two more layers of carbon fiber went on the lower gudgeon and wrapped around the back. They're clamped onto the cassette to ensure good bonding.

    The last bits of "thickening" biaxial glass went on the upper part of the blade. After that kicks off and there's a little bit of sanding, it's all more-or-less ready for paint. The end is in sight.
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  8. #38
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    Since mobility is important for us, I've sometimes looked at kayaking lifejackets...

    https://www.seakayakermag.com/best-kayak-life-jackets/
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  9. #39
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    I think I'm turning this into the Getting Ready for SHTP 2022 thread.

    The rudder blade got a coat of paint, and the cassette, as well, this weekend. The blade got the last of my West Marine white glossy polyurethane. The cassette got flat, ugly battleship gray latex, that I used to use on cabersl. Beauty is not the point, here...protection from water and UV is the point. So except for the tiller brackets, the E-rudder is now done.

    ON TO THE NEXT PROJECT...

    Yesterday I made some progress on the hatch cover/hood.

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    I made the cover for the Santana 3030 I had in 2004, and it's a tich' too small for the Wildcat. It's been sitting my garage, or Max's all these years. It's constructed from a sandwich of pink home insulation foam epoxied between doorskins. The doorskin's plywood was delaminating in a few places and needed to be re-glued or replaced. DONE. I needed to make the base wider to fit on the Wildcats companionway. Those are the plywood flanges along the bottom. I'd always wanted to make the back rim, across the top stronger, to be able to withstand a good hit from the boom, so I did that, as well.

    Now it need some more epoxy/wood dough fillets at the end of the cover/flange, and some 4-inch fiberglass tape to strengthen that joint. When that cures, I'll flip it over, sand down/round off the inside edge of the flange and get a strip of 4-inch tape on that, as well. The 60 pound bag of concrete is there to hold the hood down, solidly on the flanges.

    The acrylic windows are sealed with silicon, and there are bolts, washers and nuts that hold it on to the cover. The bare end of those bolts had a history of gouging scratches in the top of my head, so I took the grinder to 'em and ground them down flat with the nuts.

    The final bit will be a coat of paint, and it'll be ready to go on the Wildcat. This thing is not glamorous. It's not a pro-job, but it's surprisingly strong and surprisingly light.

    I need to make a hatchboard cover to go in front of this hood, as well. That will be laminated up from 3 layers of doorskins and bent slightly over a frame, so that it's not completely flat.
    Last edited by AlanH; 03-09-2020 at 07:38 AM.
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  10. #40
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    I plan to make Jan Alkema's "RHM" Rudder Head Mount pendulum oar, which you can read about, here:

    http://www.windautopilot.de/docs/alkema/RHM-USD.pdf

    I'll combine that with his "USD" UpSide Down windvane, as modified by Mister Vee, and re-modified by me. That needs to be in place and tested before next summers LongPac.
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

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