CB cable connection HELP!

[Swashbuckley]

Greenlake, sage advice, thank you. I think that I will more than likely start building new foils while I am sanding and prepping the hull. I will keep the originals for backup. Would you recommend plywood or plank for the foils? I also cannot stop my engineering soul from wanting to improve the original design. Everyone has discussed the foil shape as the single best improvement for a custom board and rudder. I have another idea on the rudder foil that should reduce the stress on the rudder head and stick. You know the TX200 is known for killing rudders. I will start another thread on my idea when I get some sketches drawn. Once again thanks.

[GreenLake]

I used plywood for my rudder, but I am not necessarily advising that as the final answer.

For two reasons. One is that I didn't use marine plywood, so the glue won't necessarily be durable if the blade ever pulls moisture...and I had a failure in laminating the two sheets of plywood (since corrected).

My boat is drysailed, the rudder gets "inspected" each time I mount/dismount it and I kept the original. So I felt I could get away with an experimental design (and I really really wanted to play with using the "banding" from the layers as a visual aid in shaping the blade). When the glue joint between the two sheets of plywood failed I noticed that early and could correct it before there was lasting damage.

Solid planks laminated with epoxy might be a wiser choice for a CB. Also, if you read up a bit, you find that some people cut a shallow groove into each face and put reinforcement in the form of strong glass or even carbon laminate there. Doing so would stiffen the board. I did not do that for my rudder, but I might have if I was planning to sail the Tx200. Rudder failure is never fun, but where I sail, I felt I could risk running an experiment (and so far, after several seasons, it appears a durable construction).

I would definitely also plan on allowing for a sheath of fiberglass, possibly an additional layer (cloth tape) for the leading edge. Just to avoid any problems from inadvertent contact. This makes shaping the blank slightly more challenging as you need to shape the wood not to the final curve, but so that wood plus glass will make the final foil shape. You don't want to sand through your protective laminate in shaping and fairing the foil.

For my rudder blade I've used the trick of sawing off the bottom forward corner and then gluing it back on. That creates a line of epoxy that seals the main part of the foil, even if you damage the tip from grounding. Works best if you do that before shaping the board

With a bit of care like that, you should be able to have confidence that your board will survive for extended periods in the water (and without constant or even frequent inspections).

At the trailing edge, some people don't let the wood go all the way to the edge, but use some thickened epoxy or other filler between the two layers from the fiberglass wrap. The advantage of that is small dings will not reach the wood later, and also, you can sand the trailing edge to perfection without breaking the epoxy seal. The trailing edge should taper to about 1/8" or so, and then ground to a flat cutoff. However, to help the trailing edge shed vortices, the flat cutoff would not be at 90 degrees, but slightly angled that either the SB or Port side of the edge is a tad further aft. So, when you make your wood blank, cut it off when you reach the 1/4" point at the trailing edge and do the remainder as described above.

(If you don't want to mess with mixing thickener into epoxy, you can substitute 3m High Strength Marine Filler - after sealing the trailing edge of the wood with epoxy first. It's polyester based, but plenty strong. I would apply it and shape it between two stiff plastic sheets to give it the desired shape. It cures fast compared to epoxy. Then sand as needed and apply the glass wrap afterwards over both wood and filler. It also works well in fixing dings in CB or rudder foil, as long as it has a rough surface for mechanical bonding).

Even with all of these considerations, the work to get a shaped blank should be the lesser part of it. Fairing and painting, if you are meticulous, will be where you'll spend your time.