The Rudder

Last weekend saw no progress on our little boat. We had family and grandkids around so we took the time to enjoy that all too rare experience. We had baseball in the back yard, the swing set got a good workout and we all sat around the table and laughed. What could be better than that? Our younger son will be 35 tomorrow and we celebrated that event a little early.

When I am working on a project, and this pram falls into that category, I make a work schedule in my head. I want to get this much done by thus and such a time. And then if I can't keep up with my own work schedule, I feel that I am falling behind and I need to catch up. I have to admit to feeling that way about the pram this week. I wouldn't change what I did do last weekend for anything but it is what I didn't do that bothers me. So, it was with that feeling during this week that I decided I would work on the pattern for the rudder blade.

The boat plans call for the rudder to be made out of the same sheet of 3/8" plywood that the bottom of the boat is made from. The plans show a grid of 3" squares and the rudder drawn within that grid. John thought I should just draw the grid on the plywood and then draw the rudder directly on the plywood. I was afraid if I did that I would create pencil dents on the plywood and my rudder would forever have a grid on it. So, I took two left over Susan Collins campaign posters (I hope she doesn't mind) and taped them together and drew my grid on them. Then I lined out the shape of the rudder onto the grid. It came out pretty nicely.

Since 3/8" is pretty thin for a rudder, the plans also have you cut out of your left over 1/4" plywood, two cheeks to be glued on either side of the rudder blade to make it a little more rugged where the tiller fastens onto it. I lined out the shape of the cheeks on my grid too. After doing this, I figured the whole thing would be just under an inch wide where the tiller fastens on. Then I began to investigate just how the blade fastens onto the boat. I looked at our favorite marine supply store's website but couldn't find a single "rudder hanging" kit. Then I checked Wooden Boat's website and ah-ha, there was the exact rudder hanging kit I needed. After checking the price of the brass kit, I scrapped my plans for making the rudder out of plywood. This rudder is going to be made out of mahogany! We added a 12" piece of mahogany to John's list of items to order.