Not completely finished, but the hard part is done, I ran out of epoxy so I figured I'll post pics now. All I have left is to fair, sand, and barrier coat it. I'll probably do that when I do the entire boat. Anyway, on to the pics...
Step one! Remove rudder. There is a bolt through the top of the post, remove it. Remove the one bolt that goes through the steering idler into the rudder, loosen the 4 bolts that clamp the idler to the post, and slide it out.
Scrape it to see just how badly it's cracked
Now this part may have been unnecessary, I could have just drilled some small holes and set it in front of my heater, instead I tried to de-skin it. The wet area wasn't that bad, pretty much just in the opened area
This is the heaviest foam I could find, 16lb foam. That means it weighs 16lbs per cubic foot. These two cans only make 1/4 cu/ft of foam, so that gives you an idea just how dense it is. Foss Foam, the OEM manufacturer of Hunter rudders uses 20lb foam. In either case, it is the main structural component of the rudder, the glass is there just to keep out the water it would seem.
Mix mix mix
pour into all low spots...
It does not expand very much, a lot less than the stuff we use to make race car seats...
mix pour, mix pour, do it while the first layer is still tacky and it will bond. It gets really warm and cures really fast...
Ok, that's enough pouring, I could have gone more but I was worried about how difficult it would be to sand...
...It wasn't difficult to sand
but it did make a huge mess, I attacked it with an angle grinder first, the stuff is as hard as a rock, my basement is covered in foam particles, along with all the sawdust left over from my kitchen
Mark the high spots by running a straightedge over the foam, sand some more this stuff sands very easily...
Not bad eh?
Fairing compound, applied with the same straightedge, only had to do 2 coats...
Sand, fair, sand...
And cover it with glass. This is one layer of 10oz glass. I'll add another layer of thin glass and fair, sand, barrier coat, done.
Step one! Remove rudder. There is a bolt through the top of the post, remove it. Remove the one bolt that goes through the steering idler into the rudder, loosen the 4 bolts that clamp the idler to the post, and slide it out.
Scrape it to see just how badly it's cracked
Now this part may have been unnecessary, I could have just drilled some small holes and set it in front of my heater, instead I tried to de-skin it. The wet area wasn't that bad, pretty much just in the opened area
This is the heaviest foam I could find, 16lb foam. That means it weighs 16lbs per cubic foot. These two cans only make 1/4 cu/ft of foam, so that gives you an idea just how dense it is. Foss Foam, the OEM manufacturer of Hunter rudders uses 20lb foam. In either case, it is the main structural component of the rudder, the glass is there just to keep out the water it would seem.
Mix mix mix
pour into all low spots...
It does not expand very much, a lot less than the stuff we use to make race car seats...
mix pour, mix pour, do it while the first layer is still tacky and it will bond. It gets really warm and cures really fast...
Ok, that's enough pouring, I could have gone more but I was worried about how difficult it would be to sand...
...It wasn't difficult to sand
but it did make a huge mess, I attacked it with an angle grinder first, the stuff is as hard as a rock, my basement is covered in foam particles, along with all the sawdust left over from my kitchen
Mark the high spots by running a straightedge over the foam, sand some more this stuff sands very easily...
Not bad eh?
Fairing compound, applied with the same straightedge, only had to do 2 coats...
Sand, fair, sand...
And cover it with glass. This is one layer of 10oz glass. I'll add another layer of thin glass and fair, sand, barrier coat, done.
