| Rudders & Trim Wing |
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| The rudder construction began with cutting the rudder spars. I used #1 grade pine lumber, knot free and stright wood grain. I cut slots in the ends of the spars for the 3/4" round wooden dowls. The wooden dowls have a flat spot sanded on opposite sides, expoied in place, then leveled. I have to give credit to Carl Gorsuch (a very experienced hover builder) for this idea. The foam blanks are cut and ready to be epoxied into place. |
| After the epoxy sets, time to shape the rudders. Most builders use a hotwire to cut the foam to shape. Not being experienced with the techniques of hotwiring, I decied to use my router to cut the foam. The router worked very well for this process, yes, it's a bit messy, however, there were no low spots where a hot wire dipped intot he foam. After I cut the foam, I sanded the rudders with a very long sanding block, using templets at either end of the rudders, to guide the sanding block. Another hover builder, Zack Bell pass the idea to use drywall sanding screens to sand the foam. I must say, it's works very well! Thanks Zack! |
| Here we have the first set, and one of the second set of rudders that I made. Why two sets you ask? Well, if you look closely at the image in the left cornner. just aft of the spar you can see a white band or strip. The white strip is filler that I had to use when the hotwire cut to deeply into the foam. To make a long story short, I guess the filler wasn't dried out enough, after I fiberglassed the rudder, (about a week after) the fiberglassed delaminated , causing a very large bubble.. Not just one rudder, but all three had some sort of delamination. So, I decided to make another set. The second set turned out great! Like I said before , the router worked very well for shaping the foam.. |