how to fix a cracked rudder

J

jaas75

Member
hi guys i have the old style rudder, and last time i was sailing i notice a play whenever i wanted to steer upon further investigation i notice the attachment of the tiller-rudder was not as tight AND also notice my rudder had a sort of a crack.
So im starting the "fix" drilling some holes to the end of the crack to release the stress, but besides filling the holes with some epoxy or wood filler what else can i do???
i want to keep the wood termination, But if you guys think its better i can just glass the rudder and paint white, what you guys think??


thxs in advance

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I had a similar situation with my old Sunfish when I got it. Only the crack in the rudder went right through the main bolt hole that holds the rudder cheeks. Plus, there was tons of slop in the main bolt that holds the rudder cheeks as well as the bolt that holds the brackets for the tiller. That was from the wood getting soft and ground away over the years by the bolts. So, here's what I did.

Step 1: "Glued" the crack back together with West Systems resin.

Step 2: Drilled out all three holes in the rudder head to a much larger diameter than the originals. This was so I could then fill them with pure resin and then re-drill new holes later after I laid glass over them.

Put duck tape over the 3 holes on one side then laid the rudder on its side and filled the holes with resin... adding steady drips of more resin right up until the resin started to harden... because the wood was slowly absorbing resin and creating a little depression in the upper surface of the pool of resin in each of the holes.

Step 3: Laid glass and resin over the rudder head on both sides. I also sealed the top of the rudder head (the thin part) with resin alone to seal the wood.

Step 4: Re-drilled the 3 holes. You can see one of the enlarged holes in the photo below that now has resin in it with the smaller pin mounted that one end of the spring attaches to. If you very carefully drill the holes, slowly moving up in size, you can eventually get a hole that is the perfect fit for the different sized pins and bolts. Ie, no slop.

So now I've got a nice solid arrangement that the rudder cheeks rotate around but with zero slop. Never did get around to sanding the glassed area completely smooth. But that's ok because it made for a nice illustration photo for you!

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Cheers,

- Andy
 
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Force glue in the crack... clamp it closed.
Drill from front to rear a centered 1/4 inch hole... glue in a 1/4 inch solid fiberglass rod with slow cure epoxy. Rod should be just 1/4 inch short each end so you can fill the ends of the holes with a mahogany wood plug.
Sand and touch up the finish.

Now you can't find the repair.
 
similar to what fhhuber said, but instead of the fiberglass rod, I just a piece of 1/4" steel threaded rod (available at most any hardware store).
here is a picture of it partially installed in the base of my Super Porpoise rudder.
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Originally this type repair used a dowel... but the FG rod is many times stronger.

Note that the steel threaded rod is going to rust inside the rudder.
 
the threaded rod is surrounded by epoxy, so I'm not sure how quickly the rusting would occur.
 
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