Re: NACA-0014 Rudder Modification Underway

Hey Bob, hey Mike, THANKS.

Sometimes a man reads a thread just too many times. It follows him into his sleep and it enters into his dreams. And such was the NACA-0014 thread.

I am no surfboard shapper. My wife is a hell of an artist ( see her work at www.nikkimaloof.com :), but I lack any and I mean any ability to free form things. And because of THIS talent my rudder project was going to have to come with training wheels.

Here's the blow by blow of what I did - 

Step 1: Read this

Step 2: Create a NACA 0014 template (the Internet can help you with this)

Step 3: Make a bunch of these out of wood

Step 4: Make sure the wooden foils are all the same

Step 5: Do this to fit the wood templates onto the rudder

Step 6: Mount templates and space them out

Step 7: Glue templates and foam core with thickened epoxy

Step 8: Sand, sand, sand (I used an orbital sander - 100 grit)

You will notice that this method creates gaps on the leading edge because of the foil template overhang. Several people that have created their own foiled rudders have modified their leading edge with a denser material to protect the rudder from impact damage. I chose to fill this negative space with a thickened epoxy hence creating a super dense leading edge. Of course this sucked to sand to shape but I am very confident that I created an impact resistant edge. In addition I also put several extra layers of glass on the leading edge.

I hope this stuff isn't toxic.

Step 9: Glass, sand, and paint

The rudder project is not totally completed. I used a pretty heavy fiber glass cloth and after sanding and painting you could still see the weave in the cloth. I am not happy wth this finish so I'll be revisiting this project again.

Functionally the rudder was amazing and worked perfectly.

The End is in Sight

School had finished and I had made plans for my first sailing trip. I gave myself a week to finish all of the remaining projects. The daily routine was wake up, drink coffee, jog a few miles, work until 1 or 2 in the morning, pass out from fatigue, and repeat.

I was motivated and had a deadline. A buddy and I had planned to drive her up to Maine and sail for a couple of days, assuming that the boat was going to float.

Back to the work though - 

Kpeting was really stating to look like a boat, but there were tons of annoying jobs that I had been avoiding. One was to remedy the scupper situation. After hours in a West Marine I decided to solve the problem, not to my liking, by employing scuppers and flexible hose. This is by no means a good solution and one project that I will be revisiting. But I needed a fix and for there not to be open holes in my boat.

Second project was to get some wood back in the boat so I could sleep in there. Please note that there is some real irony in this story. One of the major reasons why I originally cut this boat in half was to rebuild a nice interior for her. Having no deck inhibiting my moments I would easily be able to redesign the crappy interior. Oh man did I have dreams!

But as you know, I have all ready glued the boat back together. Fool. So everything that I am doing to get an interior back into the boat can be done with to top on.

Using the old wood as a template.

Shape the wood.

Cut into tiny pieces because I glued the boat back together.

Fit the wood.

For any one of you that knows the inside of a Com-Pac 16 well, you will notice some mods in these pics. Mainly that I use hull stiffeners and wood to rest the bunks onto. I used hull stiffeners and not wood to add integrity and strength to the hull. My plan was to permanently remove and to sail without the, albeit small but structurally important, forward bulkhead and accompanying plywood top. This in turn made me think that I should supplement the hull in some way to compensate for the stiffness that was being lost.

I found some hull stiffeners and epoxied them in.

It was a win win for me because where I placed them allowed me to tack down the bunks in a semi-permanent fashion without having to glass them in. I just figure at some point in the future I will want to replace the plywood (a material that I truly despise) and replace it with real wood. The hull stiffeners will allow me to run boards perpendicular to the stiffeners in a slat like fashion. But for now I was out of time and starting to run out of money at this point of the project.

Paint the wood.

Ah that looks nice. A rough fitting and placement of my new white cedar cabin sole, complete with porta John, was bringing the dream of sleeping on this thing into fruition.

Putting the Deck Hardware to Bed

Damn, there was more hardware than I remembered taking off. PLUS, I really wanted to add more to the boat. The picture above shows some, not all, of the job ahead. Two areas I really wanted to spend some extra time thinking about and doing a good job on were: the mast step hardware and the chain plates. 

The bow pulpit and the anchor roller are also key areas that I wanted to beef up.

WAIT!! I need to glue the boat back together!

Oh my, that really sucked. Now what is that that I glued the boat back together with?

Jamestown Distributers Thixlo premixed epoxy. I know - bold move. I assure you that I have read extensively on the pros and cons of premenently glueing the hull and deck together. It was a very informed decision to bond this joint for once and for all.

Enough on that. Now time to focus on mast hardware.

When I bought the boat the compression post had been cut out and I didn't know it. Luckily someone from the Com-Pac users group pointed this out to me. This would of been a painful thing to learn the hard way. UUHH, I don't even want to think about it.

I modified the mast step and made it stronger. I also added a SS plate to attach some pulleys and what have you. I used a piece of maple for the compression post.

A few more screws, some more 4000, and some cleaning. It almost looks like I can go sailing!

Yes, I did not paint the cockpit till the bitter end of the project. I learned this trick the hard way. When I refinished my Pearson 26 I painted the cockpit before finishing the job and basically destroyed all off my hard work by mostly working out of the cockpit...which is what you do on a sailboat. It never looked the same after dropping tools on the fresh paint, spilling various chemicals, and of course grinding dirt into the paint. Yes I could of been more careful or I could just paint the cockpit after everything was done. :)

Attacking the Deck

Now that the lead was in the hull and the outside of the hull was painted, it was time to pay some mind to the deck.

 

There were a lot of damaged spots on the deck and it really took some time to look it all over and repair all of the areas. After the deck repair experience from my last boat I've develop a hatred for gel coat. Fixing crazing is a waste of life units and no man should have to do this...pain in the A@#, but alas, it must be done.

After earasing the years of damage to the deck it was fit for painting.

Two coats of white topside paint, then some nonskid.

For the nonskid I used Kiwi Grip. I have experimented in the past with several other products. So far Kiwi Grip is the best thing that I have found. It is on the pricey side, but better that than slipping and busting yourself up or falling off of your little 16' boat in this case.

And while the waiting for the paint to dry - bright work!

When the paint was dry, it was time to start installing the deck hardware.

My Friend G10

I love craftsmanship and seeing projects that have out lived their creators. For me, there is nothing better than walking around a building that is a few hundred years old or picking up a well made tool who's original owner is long gone.

When I was working on my Pearson 26 project and it was time to make backing plates I had many conversations with people and read about materials that are commonly used. Stainless steal, aluminum; wood; the dreaded plywood; and, not so common but making appearances here and there,  G10.

After weighing the pros and cons of all these materials I decided to go with the longest lasting and unfortunately the least environmentally friendly option - G10. It can't rust, it doesn't 'rot', and it's strong as hell.

My hope, that the sum of taking care to do a solid job on this boat, is that this will be a project that lasts many years. That someone someday can enjoy the fruits of my labor and with a little elbow grease - go sailing.

When Hutchins originally put this boat together they used some crappy wood here and there for backing plates or nothing at all. The results were loose hardware and crazing all over many Com Pac 16s that I read about and seen.

Why? I'm not sure, but I was disappointed in their decision to do this.

I started from the front of the boat and worked my way back making G10 backing plates for every piece of hardware on the boat.

Below are pictures illustrating the making of the bow eye plate. Behind the plate was filled with thickened epoxy. I followed this process to complete the rest of the plates.