Team Seacats

OK, weekend wrap-up; First, sorry again for the photo quality…we still haven’t found the camera charger and I’m using Bonnie’s phone.  I’ve given up on finding it and ordered a new charger. 

I accomplished quite a bit this weekend with the one meter.  I really wanted to get the rudder knocked out so I drew up a tapered NACA 63-010 foil shape rudder and designed it and the pivot to fit the rear of the computer model of the boat.  I printed out several drawings of the foil with several key dimensions and got started shaping a piece of solid mahogany (that I salvaged from the trash at a gas station in Hilton Head nearly 6 years ago).  I intentionally made the rudder a little longer than I really thought necessary since I can make it shorter much easier than I can make one longer.

After cutting a profile shape and cutting it to the maximum width in the table saw and making the taper, I marked several center lines and measurements on the stock.  I then flipped and mounted a hand held belt sander upside down on my work bench and worked the rudder plug carefully by shaping and taking measurements as I went.  Once shaped, I needed to drill the hole for the post so I carefully mounted the rudder stock, using tape, to a square and adjusted the mounting with wedges to get it plumb and square.  This would have been much easier if I had done this before I started shaping the rudder!  I had less than 1/16″ of material to spare on each side of the post, but somehow the post hole drilled centered, straight, and true.

For some reason, I had a very difficult time getting paint to cure properly on the plug and only after stripping the plug twice and going out to purchase new paint did I begin to have some (limited) success…never did figure out what was going on there (I even had the A/C on in the shop to keep the humidity below 60% – it was raining at the time).  Once I finally got a good coat of primer on and sanded smooth, I started with the black paint, some sanding, and a clear coat.  After more wetsanding from 400 to 1500 grit paper, I polished the plug with a polishing compound and my mushroom buffing pad in my die grinder.  I then mounted the rudder pivot tube into the rear of the boat and I must say everything fits and lines up nicely.

How’s thats for a shiny finish on the rudder? (it’s sitting in the fence just before molding)

I then jigged up a parting fence to make two half-molds of this rudder and the post using some scrap lexan and the clay again for the joint.  After waxing everything (yeah! I remembered!) three times, I shot the PVA on the plug and fence, let that dry between coats, and brushed on two coats of orange tooling gel coat.  Slurry on the sharp corners…yada yada….first half of the mold is laminated and curing tonight.

shown here before filler and glass.  I’m still not tickled with how gelcoat brushes on.

In between waiting for paint to dry, I worked on the backstay plate.  This is a bit unusal because of a rigging idea I intend to carry out on this boat.  I’m going to run a drum winch inside the hull and have to sheet and return line running into the vertical rear wall of the boat in two very small brass grommets.  The lines will turn around two sheaves mounted on the rear backstay plate so they can run horizontally on top of the deck where the jib sheet and mainsheet will attach to them.  I’ve never seen one done this way…but you can’t come up with good ideas without pushing the limits sometimes ….anyway, I used yet another piece of that carbon fiber plate that I made several months ago after carefully proving out the geometry with the mast and backstay attached.  I dremeled out the slot in the rear deck for the upright and slid the plate in place and glued it with thickened epoxy (reaching inside the hull and coating it thickly).  If I do this again, the plate will be mounted before the rear deck goes in so I will have an opportunity to glass this plate in…I don’t have the highest of confidence that this piece won’t break loose…I think it will be OK but I would feel better if it had some glass on it.  However, with the deck already in place, there was just no way to get enough access without a major operation.