Hi, y'all,

Lydia's mother wonders what she does, now that she's not gardening while
caregiving her mother's back...

As you know, we dropped the rudder quite a while ago, and the skeg's inner
curve has been an item of interest for Lydia.

Well, she's back on the boat, and we're charging ahead with structural
improvements (pix to date in the 2011 refit/rudder/structural improvements
section of the gallery link below).

We, in our original refit, chased what we thought was wet (well, it was,
indeed, but for another reason) on the starboard side of the skeg, grinding
to what we were becoming alarmed about being a very deep opening.

As it turns out, that's just a void created when the two hull halves were
put together, and impossible to make the sharp corner (maybe 30° tops) on
the inside of the skeg's extreme edges, they just went over it, leaving that
void.

The reality of it is visible in our carving away of the original port side
layup of the curved area of the rear of the skeg, revealing the void
matching the one we'd filled from the outside before. The first suspicious
area dremeled (Lydia's favorite modus, vs my grinder preference) literally
spat water. That was due to the column of water held in the void. As we
were chasing wet spots, wherever we found them, we also ground out solid
stuff on the way to the bottom of the void, making the last of the running
water. I presume that it got in via voids in the shoe area at the bottom,
over all these years it's been afloat, but the shoe isn't/wasn't wet, so I
can't be sure of that. In any event, we'll solidify and that will go away.

As it didn't smell nearly at all, there was a minimum of WSMs that it
brought with it, for which we were thankful. Looking at the pix will give
you a better idea of what we've found/uncovered/ground out. We'll build up
the prior void using strips of biax 1708, and then start building out the
curve section, overdone, to a point where we'll grind off the excess which
will stick up. At the end, we'll put a couple of overlapping layers in the
dip and around the skeg edges, and re-fair that area after grinding.

We learned, along the way, to put on several layers of epoxy resin over the
the finished product, to allow fairing of the small pockets without getting
too far into any glass.

That's what we did on the added material we put on the rudder, and it worked
well. Both the top and bottom entries of the shaft were a bit dodgy, and
likely to allow water in, so I used a cone tip on the dremel and opened them
up. In the case of the top, it was very little which got removed, so we
just drizzled epoxy into that before adding the glass to the top, bending
over the sides a bit. That turned out very well.

As the rudder weighs 279#, the next challenge we had was to try to get to
the bottom of the shaft. If I maneuvered it carefully, with the top of the
shaft as a lever for assistance against the weight, I could lay it on
supports which raised it.

Various things were tried, but none of them would approach the vertical
orientation we achieved with the top. However, enough folks wandered over
wondering what we were doing that we enlisted some help. The yard allowed
us to raid their block pile, and I built a stand which I knew would just
allow the shaft to clear, if we inverted it.

So, I got it off the other supports and vertical, and walked it into
position near the blocks stack I'd built. Enter a half-dozen guys and down
onto the stack (measured before lowering so it would land the top of the
rudder on the stack) she goes, and up and over. The scaffolding we'd had
alongside for a variety of reasons was then moved into place, and the rudder
lashed to one end of it.

Easy-Peezy, as Lydia's mom would say, so we set about to increase the
opening in the rudder next to the shaft, getting rid of anything which
didn't look solid. That wound up getting into the void inside the rudder, a
bit, so we'd have to figure out how to prevent the resin from just running
inside.

In the end, we made up a 1/4" chop mixture of resin, fairly wet, but also
very stiff so not likely to just run down, and proceeded to stuff the hole.
Once the hole was stuffed, we wet out the top and laid on the glass there,
then (as the nose of the bottom of the rudder wasn't damaged, but thin, we
wanted to build that up a bit), two layers of glass on the curved part, the
bottom but now up as it stood inverted, bringing the glass further up than
the previous edge, and making a form for the chop which stood proud in the
shaft area.

As this started to firm up (we would add resin layers as it reached tacky),
I tamped the shaft area, building a new structure as well as assuring that
the bottom of the "V" we'd created was fully stuffed, and that the chop mix
made it all the way into the holes we'd exposed.

In the end, two more resin layers, and, as it started to firm (green, not
tacky, but not fully set, either), razor knifing off the drizzle and excess,
as well as trimming the excess vertical stuff around the shaft, gave us
not-too-much-sanding to bring it into readiness for more fairing. I've not
yet decided whether that will be installed or on the ground, but, either
way, the rudder itself is in much better condition than before.

While all this was going on, I was in frequent communication with a company
which does stationary journal machining. Looking into that subject reveals
that there are many companies which do that, but mostly it's on a scale
monstrously larger than ours, so I wasn't sure they could/would do ours.

Many back-and-forths later, with as many as 4 people on their side involved,
it appears they can do it; I'm looking for estimates on the work and any
assistance they can give about transport to there and back. The possibility,
if transport's entirely outrageous, would be that I'd rent a car with the
right amount of space to fit it into the trunk/dropped seat space, and drive
it there, but as it's a LOONG drive, and would be two round-trips and maybe
housing overnight, making for a 2-day rental, perhaps not. Unknown at this
point - and, while I don't know what the number is, at some point the cost
level will mean that I'll do the epoxy repair we've been talking about
instead. More and different conversations with people who do this all the
time convinces me that it's not only feasible but appropriate - but not as
good as the turn-down, weld-up, turn to radius (and, maybe, a new item
introduced by them, nitriding that area) would be, which would be as new,
and if nitrided, considerably better in both hardness and corrosion
resistance.

Compounding the delay is that I dry-fit the shoe, and I can see how one of
the bolts was sawn off. There is only one of the 5, the center, which is a
perfect run through the skeg. All the rest are marginally off-center. So,
I'll have to do some work on that, but my current thinking is to take an
extra-long (may have to "make" one out of a bolt) tap and run it through
from the threaded side, taking out the excess fiberglass as well as
threading it all the way so that the machine screw, when it comes through,
hits the threaded side of the shoe in "synch" with the threads. I had the
shoe aligned off the boat, and the dimples into which the flatheads recessed
deepened in the areas where they didn't allow full penetration, so, when all
that's resolved, the shoe should go on perfectly and all the bolts set
properly.

Not part of this topic, directly, I took our driveshaft to be
straight-checked and ditto the coupling. That shop will make me a new
bearing for the shoe, in a "hat" type, where the shoulder of the shaft is
riding on delrin, and the center is controlled by the part cut out of the
"hat" which will be pressed into the hole in the shoe. So, the rudder will
be tighter and quieter for that, as well.

So, with the shoe and shaft issues remaining as well as the fairing out,
still stuff to think about before we rehang it - but once it's hung, we'll
commence to barrier coating, and the end is in sight.

L8R

Skip

--

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery !
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