Ariel #24

[ebb]

Tim,
Great detailed photos!!

Check the rudder bolts if you can for deteriation of either at the rudder shaft. Different alloys could have been used there. The same can be said of the shaft where it sits unseen inside the tube where there is (dead) air and captured water. Many rudders have had corrosion there (as I understand it.) This is covered in the Manual.

The gudgeon strap is interesting. Looks like there is bottom paint under where it was mounted? The extra hole is mystifying because it is so off!
If there was some evidence of a second hole then of course there had to have been another strap there at one time.

If you haven't noticed here yet, I'm a believer in Silicon Bronze (Everdur 655) for under salt water applications. If your boat is a salt water boat imho you can assume the bronze you have there in such good shape is 655 and all the other parts as well. (This may not be the case with the rudder shoe.)
I have some 2" wide strips (bar) of s.b. It's definitely 'soft' enough to be bent into a U. The stuff is a true 1/8". But it looks like your strap is thicker.
(If interested, get in touch thru the 'private messages, up above here.)

Your shot of the strap shows good gold color, the chamfer, if that is original, looks like it was just done!! The rudder shoe on 338 was fastened with peened bronze rod. The trouble with that was/is available bronze rod is hardened somewhat. The normal stuff. I'm sure that there is soft peening rod somewhere, but you probably have to buy 20' of it. Is there a boat shop near you? What do you need, 6" of it? I peened the regular stuff and it was a PITA. I clamped on a big ole hunk of plate on the other side and banged away. Like with a hero peening hammer! There's no cheat so you've got the get the length of the thru pins just right.

'Luxury' machine shops have to buy lengths of material that have to be stored.
A shop that does boat work has to have the exact stuff you need.

The pins are doing minimal 'work' so imco the chamfers should be quite small and not deep. It is better to have some material to peen against. A smaller head would make it easier to remove later. Like I say, you're not going to get much of a head with off the shelf s.b. rod. Annealing the rod must be real easy to do. All you have to do is heat it to 900-1200 degrees. Tell us how to do it, OK? Next time.