August 2014

Construction of rudder blade, which is basically a tortured plywood approach with some CF inside (as per the plans). The triangle shaped pieces sitting inside were just to help hold the shape firm in the jig while the first stage  (gluing the 2 leading edges together ) was done. I had to modify the jig, which was borrowed from another builder, by putting spacer strips along the upper section to close the jig up a bit. The correct angle is 18 degrees each side- as per photo.

 I did a test section first, and also experimented with the trailing edge. Here I left it square but when I glassed it I inserted filled epoxy in the gap where the two wet layers of glass overlap and clamped  this whole trailing edge with pvc tape covered battens. When cured I trimmed it with a straight edge and fine blade using my handheld circular saw. This worked well so I used the same approach when I did the real blade, with the result that the trailing edge of the rudder is quite strong.