Friday, December 2, 2011

A New Rudder

I decided the rudder I had shaped from pink insulation foam was nice practice but that I probably needed something a bit more substantial.  So I went to Fiberglass Supply and bought some actual structural foam core material.  I also had my friend Mitch weld up a stainless rudder post which I sandwhiched in between some carbon and the foam.
I used the same technique for shaping this blank as I had the pink foam one.  I used a template to trace the shape of the NACA foil on the end of the blank.  Then I repeatedly ran it through the table saw adjusting the blade each time for the correct depth to correspond to the foil shape. I then sprayed is red and sanded down to the red refference lines that were made.  Again, this worked really well.  Just a bit awkward with the weight of the stainless post on one end.