tatolazo

HI:
We are making the keel boxes in fiberglass and epoxy, to avoid any moisture coming into the keel box or the keel itself and get them stucked. The keels in our rg65 are in 4x4 mm hardwood sticks glued together with epoxy and will be laminated with epoxy and 3/4 oz fiberglass too. That way they become a lot stiffer.

The plans for the "Palo de Agua", for example, contains a 2mm aluminum keel, but at that thickness you can not get a good airfoil.
I guess a good airfoil prevents the keel from stall when forced to up wind. or hard turns.

Hope this help.

Tato Lazo

ROADTOAD

My keels were made of multiply marine plywood, laminated on both sides with 4 oz. cloth and epoxy. Finished they are 3mm thick.
They appear to be stiff.
I will try laminating a thicker keel for the next two hulls.

The keel boxes were sealed on the inside with two coats of epoxy then assembled and coated with epoxy again on the outside. They seem fairly rigid. But will add a couple braces here and there to be sure. My keels slide into the box snug and the deck beam is stiff to hold everything in place. I was trying to save some weight and still make everything strong.

Thanx for the info.

ROADTOAD

Per your post, I can do one more lamination on my keel to increase thickness and stiffness and will beef up the keelbox.

tatolazo

Roadtoad:

Its perfect!! with all that you will keep your keel and keel box dry.

Just keep your leading edge in the keel round enougfht. some felloes shapoen it too much, and it only produces a mor eviolent stall at certain angleof attack, as when you force the boat to go up wind and it comes crossed to the displacement line.

Good luck.

Tato Lazo

ROADTOAD

I beefed up the keel box anyways. If it's overkill, let me know. The first two hulls are being used experiment with. Any input as I progress and post pictures are welcome.

tatolazo

HI:
Could you explain me how work the little tubes, collars and the rudder ( seems to be taht) in the pictues 2 and 3 .

I tryed to figure out how you assemble them and for what ppurpouse ...but did not get it....

Tato Lazo.

hiljoball

I think the third picture is showing the rudder post installed.

If I am correct, It looks like it is inside the hull and below the waterline. In which case it will leak water into the hull. It is much better to have the rudder post come right up through the deck so that it is completely sealed to the interior. At least, make it long enough to be well above the waterline.

ROADTOAD

A wheel collar was soldered to a brass tube which the rudder shaft will slide thru. The wheel collar will act as a bearing to prevent the control arm from wearing away at the tube. The picture is an optical illusion the rudder post is above the waterline.

tatolazo

Hi:
Totally clear now!!!
It really seems to be very close to the bottom in the 3rd. picture!!!

Keep us posted with the construction.

Tato Lazo

hiljoball

As the collar is soldered to the tube, remove the hex nut. That will save weight[>:] and will prevent an inexperienced owner from deciding to tighten it and distort the tube and jam the rudder.[:@]

ROADTOAD

LOL, I know what some people would do. Unfortunatly it won't happen. The set screw is soldered to the wheel collar. The solder wicks up the inside of the wheel collar and also into the set screw threads.
I couldn't find my short set screws so I used the longer ones. It was barely pressing on the tubing. It was ment to keep it in place while soldering. I will be grinding off the excess. The set screw is almost weightless....

The first few hulls are all prototypes to experiment on and to get them set up correctly.

Right now the decks are in place and just stained. Once the stain drys, it will recieve two coats of "clear" finishing epoxy and several coats of marine varnish with UV inhibitors to prevent the sun from breaking down the epoxy. First coat of epoxy will go down Sat.

ROADTOAD

Deck sheeting is in place, stained and has it's first coat of epoxy.
One more coat, let it cure for 4 days, and will then be ready to cut out the main hatch and rudder hatch. Then they will be ready for varnish. Should look good.

ROADTOAD

Here's what one of my RG's looks like now, taking shape

ROADTOAD

Hatch cover made..........

Still have to cut out of the deck a rudder access hatch. Going to make sure I pull out a scaple blade, much sharper than an axacto blade. The pc. cut out from the deck will go back on flush.

tatolazo

HI:
In our first IOMs we used the deck hatch with a raised edge to avoid water from coming in, but we couldn´t solve that. Finally we removed all and let the deck flush and started to use vinyl patches. They worked great.

Also consider seriously the GWS 1T servo winch. from servohut.com. It is very cheap and you can achieve easyly a very good handling of the sails with this. I use to put the sheet line from the servo down to the back, near transom, and glue in a "U" shaped soft copper tube ( or you can burn it in your kitchen to softening) So the line goes over the deck and come back to the mast.

with the winch fully closed i tie a swivel next to the exit of the line in the deck and from the main and jibe booms comes the lines to this swivell. So when putting all together I just open the swivell and place int the loop in the line from the sails. Then you move the stick full opossite to opening the sails and set the travel of sail booms with the dual rate or atv. if you are using a simple radio, you can just attach a scrap plastic with tape to limit the travel of the sail channel stick.

This way you achieve maximum torque and minimum lines over and below the deck.

As a famous modeller ( R/C aerobatic champion Quique Somenzini said to me once: "if IT is not in your model, it does not fail" The more gizmos you put in, the more Murphy chances.....

I hope really have the time to shoew you some pictures. But i going home late and from this PC I can not load pictures.

Keep up your good work.

Tato Lazo

ROADTOAD

I was going to go for a flush deck, had second thoughts and wanted to try a raised deck. I plan on putting some foam hatch box tape on the raised edge to keep the water out. There's always another hull waiting for a deck. I plan on the rigging to be like a Jiff, one line exiting the deck near the transom. Sort of like what I did on my M505 sailboat.

May try a winch servo next time, used two GWS servos that I had on hand from when I was building my Footy.

I didn't have much time last week to work on either hulls. Did manage to cut out two hatches for rudder access. Once I finish installing line exit tube, the hull will be ready for paint then varnish on the deck.

ROADTOAD

Some nice weather this week so, out came the cans of Krylon spray paint...........

ROADTOAD

Varnished had dried, 7 coats.
Added some deck hardware today and worked on the masts.
Hoping to get it into the water within the next month.........

hiljoball

Hi Roadtoad,

Good work on all the fittings.

I have a simple, inexpensive gooseneck/vang assembly.

For my shrouds, I drill the hole in the mast, then pass the rigging wire into the mast and out the top. Then I slip on a metal bead and a crimp. Then pull back into the mast. The result is a clean fitting with nothing external to catch. However my masts are alluminum. I don't know how this would work with CF.


Edit - removed link to competing forum

Edit. Link returned as non competing forum. . .just different.

http://www.rcsailing.net/forum1/showthread.php?t=4668

ROADTOAD

Hi, Anywhere I have screws going into the carbon mast also passes thru a 1/2" length of wooden dowl that was expoxied inside the mast tube. Gives it a bit more strength in that area. Thought I would mention this.

Your idea with a hole and wire and crimps sounds like a good idea. I would still insert a wooden dowl at that point and maybe a brass tube and flare the ends to prevent the crimps from damaging the carbon. Will try it on the next mast I have sitting here.

ROADTOAD

Finished up my rudder linkage today. Noticed a little bit of wiggle in the rudder post. Wasn't as stiff a liked. I did add braces on each side to stiffen it up. Next time around will make a rudderpost similar to the Jif.

hiljoball

I don't understand the attitude of a moderator considering another site as COMPETING with this site.

Edit - removed link to competing forum

< Message edited by Justaddwata 8/22/2008 5:12:00 AM >

That's pathetic.

There are other sites. They contain valuable information too.

I am left with the impression that the people who run this site are afraid of competition and feel that that if some of the users here go to another site they will find that this forum fares badly.

Quite frankly, the products advertized in this sailing forum are of little interest to the link to the forum that the moderator deleted.

I am an experienced sailor and model boat builder. I came here to share my experience to help other builders. If the moderator edits my posts or deletes this, I will have no hesitation in deleting my membership here to the loss of other forum members.

ROADTOAD

Finished laying out the deck rigging..........Looks like everything is in the right places to function properly. Hoping on Sunday to make some more bowsies and make permanent rigging lines out of Stren Super Braid similar to Spider Wire and Fireline.