Rudder stock design 4 Mast gluing

In yet another installment of "I try to re-design the rudder stock" I have received yet another set of plans from a Goat Island Skiff builder in New York.  He has graciously supplied me with these two schematics of his own design, as a solution to removing the tiller from the rudder assembly without having to take the rudder off the transom.  It is self-explanatory:

I really like this design, it is better than mine for two reasons:  1. It maintains Mr. Storers rudder stock design and hopefully solves the structural issue that he was concerned about, 2. There is less time fiddling over the transom pulling very critical pins over water of yet-to-be-determined depth, if you get my drift.  I can remove the tiller from the safety of the cabin.  Unfortunately, I will still have a stub of tiller sticking into my domain, but I think, for now, this is the idea Im going to go with.  The great thing about the rudder stock is that it is simple and easy to construct, I can always make another.

In other news, the mast was glued in its first step today.  In the previous post, I shaped the narrow staves.  This was a workout, but I worked carefully, and Im happy with the result.  Then, off to make the spacers for the ladder frame.  I used a piece of fir that was lounging around the garage, some stud material.  I used some good parts, and cut them to fit.  The base plug meant a trip to Lowes.  This is the first wood part of the boat that was not bought at either of my two local lumber stores.  Sorry guys.  Anyway, an 8 piece of 4x4 cedar.  I thought about using fir, for a few bucks less, but I went with the rot-resistant cedar.  Its an important piece, its light, and it should be good.  The other spacers Ill goo up with epoxy and make them plastic.

Well, that was interesting how the photos lined up, but I like it!  Notice the base plug.  After a quick mock-up my lovely wife and I took one of the uncut stave stock pieces and brought it into the basement, where I can get an even floor workspace and a slightly higher temperature, better for quicker gluing.  We made sure that we could get the wood in and out of the basement two different ways, so I dont build the mast and then get it out.  I am positive I can get the mast out of the basement.

Layed out ready for the dry fit:

Sweet, I did it again, but I dont know how.  The mast is quite straight, but I decided to use one of the wide uncut staves as a backbone for gluing, that way I could ensure that the mast is straight with no wobbles.  It also gives me a good even workspace for gluing too.  I covered one stave with packing tape, and glued away:  Notice too, the hardwood runners that will be glued to the bottom of the hull, they are long ones and needed to be scarfed.

It went well.  The bricks are slightly nudging the mast into a straight position.  Youll also notice that you dont see much of the wide stave underneath this glue-up, thats because the tolerances are super tight.  I overcut my narrow staves by 1mm and it pretty much ate up all the space on the wide stave.  I briefly considered re-planing the staves, re-working the spacers, and then gluing, but my lovely wife stopped me with some business graduate degree mumbo-jumbo stuff and talked me out of it.  I might have to plane a little extra off the base to get it to fit in the mast step, and I can (with difficulty) enlarge the mast step as well if need be.

Tomorrow, gluing the wide staves and completing the box.
 

Designing new rudder stock 1

Im trying to build a swing-up rudder stock design for my Goat Island Skiff, similar to the one I have on my Laser, except wood, and fitted for the GIS rudder.  The original plans call for a daggerboard style rudder stock where the rudder is removed vertically through the box, and the tiller is permanently attached to the box.  See here.  I am not a big fan of this design, though I appreciate its simplicity.

Here is why:

1.  I do not want a permanently attached tiller to the rudder stock.  I would like to be able to remove the tiller, and leave the rudder in the water, or at least raised but still attached to the transom.

2.  I do not like the bungee cord design to the hold the rudder in place

3. I want to use pintles and gudgeons, which would be difficult with a permanently attached tiller and dropping the assembly into place.

Here is a quick mock-up of a slightly enlarged rudder box per the plans, with a rudimentary rounded rudder top for swingability.

The stock has been extended 3 cm aft, and 1 cm down.  I am limited by the size of the transom and the location of the hole to accept the tiller in the transom.  The tiller would run between the two side of the stock across the top of the rudder and be fastened with a pin.  The spacer in the front of the box would be the same called for in the plans.  The exterior of the stock would have the two re-enforced areas per the plans, running across the top and bottom, and in addition a third re-enforced area to support the axle.  I will probably also trim the leading and trailing edges of the top section of the rudder in the box area to get a good climb out of the water as well as keep it from dragging along the beach.

Thoughts?

Rudder stock design rudder 2 daggerboard shaping

WELL

Informative day today as I peddled my rudder stock idea over at Mr. Storers forum.

There was enough persuasion action going to keep me going with the plans in term of a backless rudder stock with a daggerboard rudder.  However, I really want to be able to ditch the tiller and leave the rudder installed on the transom.

I came up with this idea:

In this plan, the rudder stock stays exactly as the plans stipulate, except I add on 15mm at the top.  This provides an area to attach a cleat (blue).  Then theres another below it (blue) and the tiller-- which is two pieced-- cradles the rudder stock.  Bolts run through the cleats into the spacer, and the tiller which slides between the cleats is held in place with a pin.

Storer warns that the torsional forces on the tiller could tear it apart, Im hoping that between the three cleats bolted through the spacer, and a bolt higher up on the tiller (not shown) to keep it together, I should be ok.  Time will tell.  I am almost positive this is the model Im going with, unless I get overwhelming evidence otherwise.

In other news, I finished rough shaping the rudder and daggerboard. 

Nice.

Oar Prototype 1

I lost power and internet for a bit during the big blow the other day, and never posted pictures of the oar. The following day I decided to shape the oar up. Using my plane, block plane, random obit sander, chisel, and wishing that I had a spokeshave, I went to work. In about three hours I got the below product. As you may notice, there is a kink where the blade meets the loom. Also, I screwed up the shaping a bit.



I mean, for a first oar done in three hours, not bad.

The blade is kinked to the loom most likely because each measurement station was taken off the edge of the board as opposed to off a theoretically straight line connecting the two ends. So if there was any deviation in the way the board has been originally cut (most likely) then the oar would reflect that in waviness-- and thats what happened. My next oar measurements will be based off a straight line down the board.

Second, I started shaping the oar without squaring it first. This would have been an easy endeavor, however I was excited to get started and planed the thing into an oval. If I had made sure all 4 sides were square, it would have been a circle.

The grip is also oval, I think it might be rough on the hands. I should not have cut it out in the blanks, and shaped it at a block, that way I could have made it a circle with a 1 1/4" diameter as opposed to the 1" it is now (a little small for me).

In the end, an easy plan, a nice looking oar, its light, and with the pine was easy to shape.

Prototype #2 is in the works. This too, will probably be a scrapper because I already cut out the grip and then realized the advantages of cutting it out when the blank was glued up.