When I got the Piper, the original rudder, such as it was, was missing the bottom pintle. The fitting on the bottom of the keel is bronze, so theoretically the stock pintle is also bronze. What to do but make a new one? So as I made the rudder, I thought about how to get a pintle pin into the gudgeon that was on the boat. After a lot of thinking, I decided to drill into the bottom of the rudder and drop a substantial bronze rod into the hole. The rod would be lag-bolted into the body of the rudder, and would be buried in the wood.
Well, I've finally gotten the pintle ready to go...thanks to good friend Len Sherman and his amazing garage machine shop.
If you review earlier pictures of the rudder, this will probably make sense. On the rest of the rudder, things are coming along. I trimmed off the un-bonded cloth and today got a bunch of fairing compound (microballoons in epoxy) on the rudder. I paid special attention to the trailing edge. It's curing outside under a plastic tarp as I write this.
That's just one side. I've already had a first go at the other side. I'll flip it over and fair the other side later this week or next weekend.
RIGGING
The last time I was on the boat, about a month ago, I got the upper shrouds off. The Port shroud has a broken strand, as you can see. I can't sail the boat with stranded standing rigging, so that has to be replaced.
There are a few other things about the rigging that are interesting. Primarily, the fittings used are unique. I'm used to seeing screw-on Sta-Lok and Norseman terminals, but seeing a pressed-on fitting like one this on standing rigging is new to me.
In the UK, there are pressed and poured rigging terminals that are...or at least "used to be" pretty standard issue, and I think that's what this is. On the "new" rigging, I'll have an eye roller-swaged on this end.
Here you can see the Norseman "screw on" rigging terminal, which I'm going to disassemble and save. This is a close up of the spreader tip and you can see what 50 years of non-use, with dis-similar metals in contact will do. I got the nut off that little bolt, but it's stainless steel and it's buried in aluminum and it is NOT coming out, barring a blowtorch and a sledgehammer. I may just replace the entire spreader.
I have "new" rigging wire and turnbuckles. My good friend George McKay passed along some older shrouds from his Moore 24. They are about 2 feet too long, so I will take them to a rigger and have an eye swaged on the end before installing them.