Today I was shocked to find that my seriously beefed up MiniCup rudder
boxes were rotten (Well, this is Florida). So I made patterns from
the old ones and cut out the pieces.
Cutting apart the old ones I found the reason they rotted was that
after I had made them I simply could not get epoxy down into the
interior to coat them. The new ones get epoxy coated before assembly.
It also seems to be time to take apart MiniCup#1 as many of the old
mild steel screws have rusted enough to swell the surrounding wood.

On Sep 1, 9:43 pm, wrote:
Today I was shocked to find that my seriously beefed up MiniCup rudder
boxes were rotten (Well, this is Florida). So I made patterns from
the old ones and cut out the pieces.
Cutting apart the old ones I found the reason they rotted was that
after I had made them I simply could not get epoxy down into the
interior to coat them. The new ones get epoxy coated before assembly.
It also seems to be time to take apart MiniCup#1 as many of the old
mild steel screws have rusted enough to swell the surrounding wood.

This time, I am gonna put a drain tube in her.

On Sep 3, 11:50 pm, wrote:
On Sep 1, 9:43 pm, wrote:

Today I was shocked to find that my seriously beefed up MiniCup rudder
boxes were rotten (Well, this is Florida). So I made patterns from
the old ones and cut out the pieces.
Cutting apart the old ones I found the reason they rotted was that
after I had made them I simply could not get epoxy down into the
interior to coat them. The new ones get epoxy coated before assembly.
It also seems to be time to take apart MiniCup#1 as many of the old
mild steel screws have rusted enough to swell the surrounding wood.

This time, I am gonna put a drain tube in her.

The old rudder box was made from the 3 mm bathroom underlayment I made
the boats from and although I beefed it up and even glassed it this
material is really crappy. The new one made from 1/4" marine ply is
really strong even without being glassed yet.