Steve sent us a pattern for a Dabber rudder, we traced it onto a teak blank that we glued up, edge glued with Pettit Marine Paint Flexpoxy. The planks were left over from the floorboard, we cut square edges onto them to remove the radiused deck edge that they came with. In this photo I had started to sand the entire blank to remove epoxy squeezeout, then I thought, hey, why not cut out the rudder first, and save a lot of sanding?
Straightened up the tracing with a 2 foot Stanley Tools folding carpenter's rule and Sharpie, then cut out the rudder with a DEWALT jigsaw.
Cut the aft notch for the tiller dowel, cut kerfs up to the line then I was able to cut along the line without binding the blade.
Drascombe Dabber Rudder edges eased with a 3/4 inch roundover bit on a DEWALT compact trim router, except for the leading edge where the pintles will attach and the tiller notches. Then sanded with 60 grit on a Black and Decker 3 inch belt sander, finished with 120 grit on a Dewalt random orbital sander. Cleaned up the tiller notches with a Kobalt ceramic tile file. The Shopvac collected most of the sanding dust but not the jigsaw creation.
The bronze pintles (pins that attach rudder to transom) are vintage, we found them on ebay. They are tapered and the lower pintle is longer so that it slips into the lower gudgeon (tube part of the hinge) first, so we can concentrate on seating one pintle at a time while the boat is bobbing around.
Skipper usually feeds me if I bring her new boat parts!
Restoration Log of VICTORY.
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