Rudder
Of all the smaller projects, this was the most cool. Iain Oughtred drew a beautiful rudder and I hope I've done it justice. The fixed portion of the rudder is honduras mahogany and the blade is ash. Don Olney, who built a Ness Yawl a few years ago, used this wood combination and I copied shamelessly. It also fit well, since I have used both woods extensively on the boat. The magnificent bronze hardware is from Classic Marine in Britain.
Here's a closeup showing these great woods. I sanded all the parts up to 220 grit, which is fairly standard for my furniture. I need to pause in my mad building and start finishing....
...which I've now done. Here are a couple of more recent shots:
I quickly realized that hanging parts worked much better when all surfaces have to be varnished. This is the second floor of my shop. The rudder blade is hanging from the very 19th century style hoist and the rudder is suspended from the end of the hoist's track. Very convenient!
The rudder now sports seven coats of Schooner Varnish and is looking sharp. Under the rudder are the tiller bar, a vertical lamination of mahogany and ash and the tiller bar extension, which was sawn out of a mahogany board. Those two parts still need finish, but that will happen soon. I took this photo on a rare sunny afternoon in the usually cloudy Pittsburgh winter. I still need hardware for the extension, and two cleats for the uphaul and downhaul lines. Otherwise, the rudder project is pretty much finished.
And here's as much of it as we can put together with the boat on the deck. My wife Tara is eager to go sailing!!! She should be; when I shot this she had just spent several hours shaping and sanding the mast.