Monday, July 14, 2008

Rudder Shoe Upgrade

When I had the boat hauled for bottom paint, I realized that my lower gudgeon had just a bit too much play for me to be really happy. When the boat had last been hauled, I had replaced the lower pintle with a 1/2" hex cap that I cut the head off and filed down. The problem is that the hole in my rudder shoe was 3/4" so there was about 1/4" of play in the lower gudgeon which just did not feel right. Since Tim was also out of the water at the same yard I went over and checked his lower gudgeon and it felt much tighter. Therefore, I decided to have my lower gudgeon tightened up. I did this by taking it to Shaw's welding in Annapolis. There I had them insert a piece of 3/4" oil impregnated bronze round bar stock (I ordered this from McMaster for about $13). Then after they pressed in the bronze they drilled a new hole with 9/16" diameter (to allow for a 1/16" misalignment error in assembly). For this they charged me $50 which I thought was a very good deal. When I re-installed the lower gudgeon it was nice and tight and I was very happy with it. They also cleaned it up for me at Shaw's so the part looked nice and shiny.




0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home