Thursday 17 August 2017

Still away - rudder gudgeons and pintles

The second round of stainless steel 316 fittings have arrived back from the fabricators, still learning more maritime terminology.  I thought a gudgeon was a type of Australian native fish but turns out I was wrong.  Took me a few checks of the plans while I was getting quotes to confirm in my mind which were the gudgeons and which were the pintles.  Hopefully I get it right.

Below are two shots of the rudder from way back at the start.  Two pintle fittings go on the top where the hardwood bracing each side is and one narrow one down near the base plate about where the red part of the hammer is.






































Below is a photo from the side showing up the top of the rudder with the hardwood bracing each side.  20mm Australian hardwood each side with 40mm wood in between.  The hole is for the tiller to slot into.



This is a shot of all the fittings.  Pintles on the left with the wide (80mm gap) up top and the narrow (40mm gap) one at the bottom.  Gudgeons on the right, two the same which will sit on the outside of the transom through bolted with hardwood pad on the inside and the large one at the bottom which is bolted onto the aft end of the keel.


Below is one of the wide ones close up.  8mm sides, 10mm on the end where two 10mm attachment pieces are.




And the narrow one, same plate thicknesses.  Note the holes for through bolting attachment to the rudder and the hole in the attachment.  More on that in a minute.


Below is a close up of the transom gudgeon.  Note holes for bolting through the transom into the cockpit and the smaller holes in the attachment pieces.



Hopefully the below will make them clear.  The mounting tabs on the pintle to the left are just smaller spaced and slide inside the gudgeon.  The smaller hole in the gudgeon is drilled at 16mm for the bolt.  The larger holes in the pintle allow the bolt with a nylon bush to sit inside which has a 20mm outside dimension.  The slightly wider again nylon base of the bush sits inside the bottom of the gudgeon allowing the rudder to slide on it rather than metal on metal.



Finally the bottom keel gudgeon looking from the side and slightly below.  Note that edges to the right of the picture flare out slightly to fit the hardwood keel on the yacht.  All 10mm as this will be the strongest part of the attachment and hopefully take the weight if I mount it correctly.



And one from slightly above looking aft towards where the rudder will be.  Imagine the space filled with kwila hardwood that tapers from 80mm wide in to a 60mm wide hardwood end cap.


That's probably all for a while.  Excitement is building, for me anyway!