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Have 6' of 1 inch and 6' of 3/8 in manganese bronze rod for ruddershaft and driftpins for sale. Had to buy it in 12' lengths (which they cut to 6' to ship) so I ended up with twice what I needed. Will sell for cost ($120) plus shipping if anyone is interested.
Tom
Hey Captain Coolidge,
I hauled "Augustine" today and I have some unsettling but not unexpected rudder issues. So, I might just be your man. However, I need to ask a dumb question. My rudder shoe is tight and nice, but my rudder is looking pretty strange in parts, with some non-stock modifications. If my rudder shoe is original, I understand that it would be silicon bronze. Can one put manganese bronze in a silicon bronze shoe without electrolysis problems?
It would be swelligant to have one-piece shaft in my boat. I may have to build a new rudder to go with it. But then again, my boat is currently down for mast and deck related accident repair, so the workshop is operational. If I can use the shaft in my shoe I am very interested and post haste.
Wanna see a slightly strangely shaped rudder with one loose bronze rudder shaft? See the photo below. My rudder is heart shaped, unlike most rudders pictured on this forum. The top of the rudder is rounded. I wonder if this modification affects the sailing characteristics. My boat sails well and likes to sail to weather with a sheet-to-tiller rig all by her lonesome for hours.
Since the photo was taken this morning, I have stripped the paint to expose the bronze shaft and epoxy/bondo/ polyester resin patches. The wobble in the top of the shaft did not seem significant to me in the tiller, and I have one of those brand new plastic Ariel rudder bearings with the "O" rings, but at the point where the shaft enters the boat, the shaft wobbles about one inch. It also twists in the wood at the top half of the rudder. It sort of creeps me out.
I am thinking about dropping it out of the boat and taking it to the shop for a look, but on the other hand I might want to build a new rudder now using my old rudder as a model. So the silicon/ manganese bronze issue is something I would like to know before I leap. If you or anyone else knows the answer to that one, I would be most interested.
And one more thing. How far off the ground does the rudder shoe have to be to slide the rudder post out of the boat. Do you have to do that in the sling? See the photo: Can I drop the rudder when the keel is this low to the ground?
Scott, give Ed Ekers a hail. He R&R'd the rudder assembly on Pathfinder and can provide some insight. [Since the Giants are in town, you may not be able to reach him until Monday.]
Scott
You don't want to use different metals if you can avoid it. Dissimilar metals in salt water create eloctrolysis. There is a lot of info on the subject somewhere on this rather remarkable site. Try searching for anything to do with rudders, ruddershafts/shoes, bronze and you'll find all the info you want.
Your rudder in the pic doesn't look to be in that bad of shape. Shape is a little odd and most likely not original but it sounds like it steers the boat nicely. The play where the shaft enters the tube would be what worries me. Something sounds way too loose. If the bearing is new it pretty much means the sloppiness is at the bottom or a bad shaft. You might want to check how much play there is at the rudder shoe. If there isn't much there (should be a little) your shaft needs close inspection. If you need to you should be able to take the rudder out of the shoe by taking the gudgeon strap off and lifting the rudder shaft out of the shoe.
Be happy to offer my two bits on any other questions you might have via pm or email. Would also highly recommend getting the input and opinions of others that make this site so invaluable.
For what's it's worth, if you have a silicon bronze shoe in decent shape, a silicon bronze shaft would make more sense, work as well, is cheaper and you can get nuts and bolts
Good luck
Tom
Nonetheless, the weaping upper shaft and the fact that the rudder twisted somewhat on the upper shaft concerned me, but you are right. The Rudder is in basically good shape.
So, I dove into my rudder project today. I think I'll keep my rudder and shaft. I removed the gudgeon, which isn't really a gudgeon in my opinion. It is more of a keeper strap, since it captures but does not really guide the shaft in any way. In the usual pintel and gudgeon set up, a gudgeon has the same affect as the rudder shoe on our Ariels and Commanders.
It would be spiffy to have a serious unit of some sort where the gudgeon is actually a support for the shaft. The way I see it is this very long shaft runs from the rudder post (tiller head) to the rudder shoe with no intermediate support attachment to the hull. You could do this by welding a ring with an inside diameter equal to the outside diameter of the rudder shaft on the inside of a strap gudgeon like the one we have.
In the present design, the shaft and rudder are free to wobble somewhat. After I disassembled the tiller head fitting and removed the bearing, I discoverd that I could drop the rudder out of the shoe. This was not my discovery actually, I read about this process on this forum: I could rotate the rudder to one side and lift it from the rudder shoe. The rudder shoe and lower shaft are perfect, probably because ithe shoe has a zinc that protects all of them.
What was new was the concept of dropping the rudder with only a foot of clearance beneath the keel. Now you don't drop it very far, but you drop it far enough to give you access to all of what lies below water, and enough to allow you to get access to the front of the shaft and all of the bolt heads.
So unless you need to so something to the top portion of the shaft, you have complete access to the rudder, and about one foot of shaft that is normally inside the hull. The upper shaft looks good. The prior owner used a combination of many things to plug the holes in which the adjustment (tightning) nuts are buried in the wood of the rudder.
The adjustment but holes are plugged with what appeared to be epoxy on the outside and 3M 5200 on the inside. The bottom of shaft was perfect and fit perfectly into the rudder shoe. I greased the shoe before I reassembled it. I discovered that the apparent flexibility of the rudder was not upper shaft failure, but was due to loose adjustmsnt nuts in those hidden holes in the rudder. They were easily tightened. I used a plastic hammer and chisel to dig out the epoxy exterior to expose what I assume was 3M 5200 interior surrounding the tightening nuts and washers. The nuts were as good as new, which was refreshing, especially since I had just snapped off the bolts holding my gudgeon on the hull.
I did not need a special tool. I have a set of wrenches that have an open crescent style wrench on one side and a circular wrench on the other. Every auto mechanic has a set of these, but I just now can't think of what you call them. One of the circular wrenches worked perfectly to tighten two lower shaft nuts and one upper nut. Although I have one more nut to dig out and tighten tomorrow, the rudder is already performing much better than before. I greased and re-mounted the rudderpost and tiller. There is still some play in the rudder if you place the force of your body against it, but nothing like it was before, and now no thumping by merely a litttle give.
Now, I did note that the bottom rudder shaft was bronze colored, but the gudgeon bolts that broke were pink as if they were made of copper, and so are the lower shaft and rudder shoe. Does this mean that electrolysis has robbed these parts of other metals and copper is the lone or principal remaining metal? Or am I a worry wart?
Not a worry wart...you are right on.
Pink bronze is old,dead, bad weak bronze.
If it's all pink...it's all bad.
Also worth looking very critically for any small pink lines or striations in otherwise good-looking bronze. Apparently this corrosion can come from the inside out (eek!) in some cases.
Dave
Dave,
It's not all pink. There are some bronze-looking portions. My upper shaft has portions that resemble copper and sections that resemble brass, but I don't know manganese bronze from silicon bronze.
My rudder shoe is well secured with stove bolts, and the shoe and the bolts look pretty much like copper, but there is no wear whatsoever in the shaft seat on the shoe. I put a mess of grease in there. I hope that was a good idea.
The plate that ties the wood insert to the main body of the rudder looks like brass, but it is held in place by screws that appear to be copper and seem to be somewhat fragile. As I previously mentioned, the gudgeon bolts snapped rather before then released their nuts.
My lower shaft looks like a brass rod. A zinc on the shoe services the shoe and lower brass rod, but I am thinking of adding a second zinc on the rudder for the lower shaft. The lower shaft fits perfectly into the rudder shoe as if the two were made for each other yesterday.
The big problem with my rudder other than the electrolytic conversion of my upper shaft to copper seems to have been that the upper shaft bolts were loose. I dug them out as you can see from the first photo. I dropped the rudder. That allowed me to see the bottom twelve inches of the hidden portion of the shaft. It is painted with bottom paint. Superficially, it looks great. The top for the shaft at the tiller post looks like new bronze.
I tightened the two bolts on the upper shaft, and now my rudder is tight. It works with not slop whatsoever. It's so quiet that it's almost spooky.
I dug out the lower shaft bolts also and tightened the nuts. He access hole were dry and the nuts tightened easily.
There still is some "sag" in tyhe shaft. By sag, I mean that if you sit behind the rudder on the ground, you can push the rudder forward. Ther shaft is unsupported from the uppeer bushing to the rudder shoe and the rudder exerts a force aftwards which bends the sghaft to the limit of the gudgeon strap. I assume that this is because there is only one gudgeon, and as I have previously stated, that gudgeon is more of a "keeper strap" than it is a guide for the shaft, in that it permits the shaft to flex forward.
By the way, how do you folks use to fill these bolt-servicing holes? Some of mine were capped with a hard white substance. Could that have been 3M 5200? (does 5200 become hard?), or was it some form of Bondo?
Other holes were capped with a gray-black hard substance that I assume was epoxy. These caps were not as successful. There was some separation from the wood. All of the holes were filed beneath the hard caps with a white rubbery substance. Was that 3M 4200, polisulfide caulk, or somethign else? Someday soon, I have to put all of this back together.
So, does nyone know the best approach to re-filling the bolt servicing holes?
Here is a photo of the plate that ties the wood insert to the main body of the rudder. It looks like brass, but it is held in place by screws that appear to be copper and seem to be somewhat fragile.
Sorry, I just realized that the photo is upside down.
The final photo is of the lower shaft and shoe. The shaft fits the shoe perfectly.
is the bronze mentioned on the top of this thread still for sale?
I found out I really need it now.
I finally blasted the crap off my rudder stocks, and they are 90% pink, and only 10% light tan/shiney bronze. :(
so, if it is still for sale, maybe this can help me out toward refurbing my rudder.
And if not.....I have 6 3/8x7" bronze machine screws, with washers and nuts, flat/slot head with tapered head. maybe for sale. they cost me ~90 for all. (ie $15 per)