Thankyou Andy. It's like heavy weather in the southern ocean. It's good when it stops!!
OK, last 2 days on rudder, fittings and removing hull from frames. Because of the strange grain in this mahogany stock, I decided to laminate everything in the rudder, rather than cut it out in 5 pieces as on the plan. So the blade is made of 8 pieces, the cheeks 2 pieces each and the fore and aft bit on the bottom is 4 pieces also. I drilled 1/16" holes through each set and pushed through some 1/16" veneer pins.
When everything all present and correct I removed the pins, applied the glue, fitted a section together and replaced the pins before clamping up. All this to stop everything sliding about under the clamps. When all gone off, removed clamps and pins. Next I tidied everything up at the sanding station prior to joining up all the pieces into a rudder. So first glued up the 3 pieces for the blade, then fitted the pintles. I drilled 2 no 1/16" holes through pintle bands and blade then pushed 2 pins through top and bottom pintle assemblies. Next I removed 2 channels on the inner faces of each cheek to clear the pintle bands then glued on the cheeks. When all gone off I filled the little holes and then sanded the foil section on the blade, tidied everything up and then drilled the hole for the 4BA threaded rod tiller arm.
Finally drilled the 2 holes in the transom for the gudgeons. I filled the oversize holes in the gudgeons with hotmelt glue and when cooled drilled 2mm holes through each to make the bushes for the pintles to rotate in.
So thats all the work on the outside of the hull completed so I removed the hull from the formers by unscrewing the after former (#9) from the plastic blocks then reaching up under the hull with a stubby posidrive screw driver and uscrewed the top plastic block from the hog. then with a bit of pressure towards ford and a little wriggling the former came free. Repeated this process up to #1 which comes off the building way with the boat. #1 was the only one difficult to get out of the hull. The hull is quite fragile in this state and needs carfull handling to avoid damage. It is surprisingly light, weighing in at 1lb 14oz, including the excess glue foam inside.
Where the hell do I start clearing this little lot?? Any tricks anyone?
Anyway It was knocking off time but I couldn't resist this.
It's possible I may have to resite the gas tank as it's maybe getting a bit cramped around the forward fold down table. We'll see.