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My tiller blade has broken
In General Questions and Comments
Tim Deacon
Aug 27, 2024
This should not be too hard to fix. I would make a drawing of the existing outline and hole positions. Break off any splinters and get a good fit when you trace the outline. Then plane back the timber core, either angling the cut to clear the top of the trailing edge or go into it. It will be harder to do if you go into it. Glue on a replacement patch in either a bit of old light mahogany, Sitka spruce of some high quality pine if you can find some. I personally do not like WR Cedar here at the stress points ie pivots. Butt joint it. Then bevel the glass covering (if it has one) on the foil and after a coat of epoxy on the new bare wood feather in some new glass (200 gsm woven roving is good) and sand back. Seal with more epoxy. Mark the hole centres (from drawing/trace), drill them out oversize and fill with an epoxy microfibre mix. After cure drill correct size and put the rope pathway in. Remember to epoxy the inside of the rope path pulling the rudder down/up. The counterbore for the knot is created by the epoxy microfibre mix being completely full then bored. If it is a solid unglassed blade I'd be tempted to tongue and groove the new timber in. Pretty simple, coat with gelcoat or 2k if it is a timber core glass blade. The foam core boards/rudders are gelcoat, primarily white (Scott Bader 337 Super white in the case of Winders) Obviously paint afterwards if timber. If you know who originally made it you might be able to match the paint if you ask them.
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FRP side deck damage/repair
In General Questions and Comments
New Wooden Solo's
In General Questions and Comments
Tim Deacon
May 18, 2024
I built one in 2010. It was very hard to source the 6mm ply for the floor. If you double skin the floor it is 4Kg heavier and not as stiff. I obtained possibly the only 2 panels of 6mm 5 core marine ply in the UK at the time. weight was 10.4Kg per sheet. The 5mm from robbins was lighter circa 7.5kg if I remember right. The ply weight content of the hull is around 45Kg of the hull weight. The calcs were not far out as I modelled it in 3D and developed the surfaces to flat sheets for density calcs. Most of the double floor wooden boats are actually technically illegal as almost all used a double 5mm form. the rules at the time said it must be 11mm, I'm not going to get them thrown out, was done to keep the weight down. Note that some hulls have thin fragile gunwhales or lack under deck reinforcing forward of the thwart as adirect result of trying to keep the weight down. You only notice when it breaks. TBH a couple of Kg over is actually hardly a deal breaker and has very little affect on performance. My first effort in 1998 was over and it still got several single figure places in Championship races. (16th overall in 1999) most of the extra weight is low or in the c/board case anyway. The shape of a wooden boat is perfectly competitive with the FRP ones. The light end syndrome is almost irrelevant on such a small craft. I understand tests indicate a 10kg weight or greater does have a negative impact... There are a small number of competitive wooden shapes, the Morrison (Gosling and Miles) one, the late Boon one, the Poulson one etc. Real problems are getting good ply, cost of said ply and long term maintenance and durability if stored outside. The rules for self build were relaxed to allow hybrid/composite type construction as ply became so hard to obtain. You could say build a competitive glass coated diagonal WR Cedar floor hull. My own hull with quite stiff under deck support and gunwhales came out just over 1Kg under weight. As for stiffness i had one local chap of 115Kg weight who tried a lot of the FRP boats and said mine was the stiffest Solo he had sailed!. The advantage of FRP is build time and consistency. They are good boats and have proven to last well. A lot different to the early GRP efforts and osmotic hulls... You will not build a wooden hull in the two days or so it takes to resin infuse a hull and deck moulding. Some of the guys sell a hull you can put a wood deck on thouhg. There are several Winder hulls with that form that have done well. You build in wood if you want to try an idea or can't afford an FRP one. Both applied in my case. I also had the kit and space to build in fortunately. My first was built on the first floor of an industrial unit in Islington, great fun getting down the stairs. The Security Guards face when he saw it was a picture. The second was a much easier build and I engineered out most of the inherent stresses from bending timber around. In the end i had about 5 screws holding it on the frames and you could pop it off and on them with no distortion at all. Sadly the market for wooden boats is poor for holding value, suspect simply maintenance and time issues. People do not have the time or space. The luxury of the C21st is space, I'm extremely fortunate to have a garden and wokshop even if far from level.
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Tim Deacon

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