PocketShip.net

I just finished gluing up the rudder skins onto my blocking and I’m not happy with my taper on the trailing edge at the top.

It’s a moot point now (unless I want to rebuild the rudder, which I don’t) but I’m curious if anyone else had trouble getting the taper right on the curved block piece. The compound taper. I went through three pieces of block trying to get it right. Finally had to go slow with a rasp and then a final sand. Clamped up, I thought it looked ok, but once glued, the taper at that point is wonky enough to bug me. I guess it’ll affect performance to some small degree but I’m sure I’ll never notice.

I’m just curious at this point. I’ve never seen anyone mention this part as terribly tricky so I feel like I’m missing something obvious. If anyone else struggled with this and learned anything of use, I’d love to hear it.

I remember having to taper the upper part carefully so that the portion covered by the reinforcing cheek blocks would remain flat.
But it worked out fine in the end:

https://dougbraun.com/pocketship_blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/PXL_20210706_183906262-scaled-1.jpg
https://www.clcboats.com/images/2022/blbfrecap/BLBF_2022_Recap_054.jpg

I had to clamp that area carefully to be sure there were no gaps.

Doug

I don’t recall having much trouble getting that part right , just had to think about it a lot. I did have trouble with getting the front to back tapers symmetrical at the bottom when I glued it all up. Mine ended up not symmetrical and I had to sand one side and build up the other. I also found the trailing edge block in the kit was a bit short but was able to compensate by changing the shape of the top piece when I cut it out.

The curved piece is barely if ever really in the water (it looks like), so I'm assuming I'm not losing any real performance.