JSGerson

Jeff, just 5 years worth 😁

I didn’t like the idea of styrene as it just felt wrong and the final construct, I believed, would be too flimsy to support the rudder chains properly. Other builders merged the straps gripping the rudder together and just extended them to where the rings attached. Some builders used a square cross section brass tube to support the rings. The problem I felt was that the straps had to support an extrusion that extended 90° from the aft end of the rudder beginning with a round cross section and morphing into a flat vertical tail where the two rings are attached.
 
I initially tried to use my limited silver solder skills with a flat head nail. I placed the 1/16” diameter nail in my Dremel to spin like a lathe. With a file, I tapered the nail shaft down a bit away from the nail head using photographs as my guide. Then I cut the tip off the nail leaving the nail head and shaft at the proper length. Using the file again, the aft end was flattened vertically to accept the eventual chain rings. Finally, I silver soldered the nail head to the center of a length of 3/32” wide strip of brass.
 
I had hoped the nail head would give me enough surface area for a strong solid joint. Then I could wrap the length of the brass strip around the back edge of the rudder so the nail shaft would protrude aft. At this point I still hadn’t figured out how to attach the rings. This became a moot point when I tried to wrap the solder part onto the rudder, so I would know how much I had to trim the straps. The soldered joint broke apart and the nail fell off.

Gudgeon Hinges Installation
Now it was time to install the straps and gudgeons to the hull. This was not as easy as I thought it would be. The plan was to install the topmost one and then one by one, the next in order using the rudder as my guide. Since I had the model upside down, I was working from the bottom up, but I had a devil of a time. The highest strap (on the bottom) had the most radical bends. I rough shaped the strap bends just to position them onto the hull.

Once I got the first one installed, I tried to install the second. I emphasize the word “tried” because I couldn’t get the two pintles to slip into their respective gudgeons at the same time. Just a thousandth of an inch off in any direction, and they wouldn’t fit. If I did get them to fit, the angle of the whole rudder was off. I must have ripped off these two gudgeons and straps at least a half dozen times or more. However, once I finally got them to fit, the remainder of the strap and gudgeons fell into place relatively easily. I emphasize. “relatively”.

Once I got the first one installed, I tried to install the second. I emphasize the word “tried” because I couldn’t get the two pintles to slip into their respective gudgeons at the same time. Just a thousandth of an inch off in any direction, and they wouldn’t fit. If I did get them to fit, the angle of the whole rudder was off. I must have ripped off these two gudgeons and straps at least a half dozen times or more. However, once I finally got them to fit, the remainder of the strap and gudgeons fell into place relatively easily. I emphasize. “relatively”.

Gudgeon Hinges Installation
Now it was time to install the straps and gudgeons to the hull. This was not as easy as I thought it would be. The plan was to install the topmost one and then one by one, the next in order using the rudder as my guide. Since I had the model upside down, I was working from the bottom up, but I had a devil of a time. The highest strap (on the bottom) had the most radical bends. I rough shaped the strap bends just to position them onto the hull.

Rudder Iron (Chain Iron)
I decided that before I install the rudder to the yet to be installed hull gudgeon hinges, I better fabricate and install the rudder iron to the rudder while it’s still off the model. On the MS plans it looks similar to a simple tuning fork with a couple rings at the aft end. Looking at photographs, it’s a bit more complicated…of course. The kit does not provide any hardware for this item so it’s a scratch build. Once more the practicum shows how to fabricate it with styrene, while other builders tried other various methods using brass strips and tubes.

Using fine toothed hand saw, the hinges were cut apart. I thought about using my Dremel with a rotary saw or cutting disc, but I realized I couldn’t hold my hand steady enough for a clean cut. A few finishing touches with a file to clean off and smooth the edges, and the hull side hinges and gudgeons were formed.

Rudder Iron (Chain Iron)
I decided that before I install the rudder to the yet to be installed hull gudgeon hinges, I better fabricate and install the rudder iron to the rudder while it’s still off the model. On the MS plans it looks similar to a simple tuning fork with a couple rings at the aft end. Looking at photographs, it’s a bit more complicated…of course. The kit does not provide any hardware for this item so it’s a scratch build. Once more the practicum shows how to fabricate it with styrene, while other builders tried other various methods using brass strips and tubes.

Next, the pintle hinges were positioned and CA glued to the rudder while ensuring there was enough space for the gudgeons to slide under the pintles. The picture below is of the pintles dry fit up.

The pintles were fabricated initially as a gudgeon with one extra step. After fabricating the preliminary gudgeons were formed, a length of 1/32” brass rod was sliced into five 1/8” pieces using the razor saw for clean cuts. These 1/8” pieces were inserted into the gudgeons converting them into pintles and fastened with CA glue to complete the process. CA glue was used because it set quickly, was strong, neat, and needed no additional cleanup.

Using fine toothed hand saw, the hinges were cut apart. I thought about using my Dremel with a rotary saw or cutting disc, but I realized I couldn’t hold my hand steady enough for a clean cut. A few finishing touches with a file to clean off and smooth the edges, and the hull side hinges and gudgeons were formed.

The hull side hinges consisted of two parts, the strap structural element that attached to the hull and the gudgeon. The trick was to form the five gudgeons in perfect alignment so the rudder would be able to pivot smoothly. This was something that Ken Forman made note of. I modified his method so I could not only maintain alignment but made the silver soldering easy.
 
First, I formed the hinges by wrapping the copper strips over a 3/8” thick piece of stock basswood. Then I drilled a 1/32” hole into a piece of wood so a length of 0.032” stiff music wire could be inserted. A length of 1/16” brass tube was slipped over the music wire. The five hinge straps were draped over the same piece of wood that was used to form them and clamped on either side. The block of wood holding the music wire with the brass tube was then held in place over the hinges with a rubber band. When silver soldering paste was dabbed onto each hinge and the brass tube positioned onto the hinges, everything was in place. With a couple of passes with a small torch, the tube was soldered to all five hinges assuring the gudgeons would be perfectly aligned.

I used my Byrne’s saw with a fine-tooth blade to slice the 1/32” strips of copper from the sheet without any problem. The strips were cut to length. Some builders attempted to simulate the hinge fastening bolts, but I decided, as much as I wanted to, to forego the attempt as the final product would most likely be out of scale or be too small to matter at 1/76.8 scale and not worth the effort, less than 1/128” in diameter or about 1/3 the width on the hinge.

I had to do some thinking about how to fabricate the rudder hinges. Robert Hunt’s practicum opted to make a non-functioning rudder using styrene as the build material of choice. Looking at Ken Forman’s (xKen) build log (my go to alternative guidance), he created functioning rudder using brass which I liked. Both builders painted their hinges black. Others who used brass, sometimes left their hinges as bare shiny metal. However, looking at the pictures of the actual rudder, I noticed the color of the hinges matched the background colors of the green patina of the copper plate, the red waterline, and black painted hull. Does that mean the green hinges are made of copper? More than likely they were made of iron but were colored by the bleeding patina of the copper plates. For my model to have the same color of the copper plates as it ages, my hinges were made from 0.016” copper sheet. Remember, it’s a model, not a miniature replica.

Rudder Hinges
For a simple mechanism, the hinges will require a high degree of precision to allow the rudder to pivot effortlessly. All the hinge parts must line up precisely or the rudder will bind. Also, the rudder must be able to move vertically to provide sufficient clearance space for the pintles to move into position to drop down into the gudgeons.

Once I got the first one installed, I tried to install the second. I emphasize the word “tried” because I couldn’t get the two pintles to slip into their respective gudgeons at the same time. Just a thousandth of an inch off in any direction, and they wouldn’t fit. If I did get them to fit, the angle of the whole rudder was off. I must have ripped off these two gudgeons and straps at least a half dozen times or more. However, once I finally got them to fit, the remainder of the strap and gudgeons fell into place relatively easily. I emphasize. “relatively”.

Gudgeon Hinges Installation
Now it was time to install the straps and gudgeons to the hull. This was not as easy as I thought it would be. The plan was to install the topmost one and then one by one, the next in order using the rudder as my guide. Since I had the model upside down, I was working from the bottom up, but I had a devil of a time. The highest strap (on the bottom) had the most radical bends. I rough shaped the strap bends just to position them onto the hull.

Thinking about this more, even if the joint had held, how do I fasten the rings? If I solder the rings on, I risked unsoldering the nail head (I didn’t have different temperature solders). Gluing with either CA or epoxy was iffy at best due to the miniscule gluing surface areas.
 
I opted for another method. Instead of a metal shaft. I used boxwood. This time I used a small brass head nail. I drilled a hole in the center of the strap and pushed the nail through it from the backside pointing aft. This was silver soldered into place. The shaft was made from a piece of boxwood for strength and ease of shaping the round cross section forward and vertical flat aft. Two holes were drilled on either side of the tail for the eventual ring bolts. An additional hole was drilled at the forward end along the axis to accept the shaft of the soldered nail. Still, the wood piece was very difficult to hold and carve, so I did not get the precise shape I wanted. The CA glued nail will provide a solid connection and structural strength. Finally, the eyebolts were cut to length, and inserted into the aft hole with CA glue. The whole component was painted black, and CA glued into place on the rudder. Using wood in lieu of metal is just fine. It’s painted black and no one will be able to discern the material it’s made of.

I didn’t like the idea of styrene as it just felt wrong and the final construct, I believed, would be too flimsy to support the rudder chains properly. Other builders merged the straps gripping the rudder together and just extended them to where the rings attached. Some builders used a square cross section brass tube to support the rings. The problem I felt was that the straps had to support an extrusion that extended 90° from the aft end of the rudder beginning with a round cross section and morphing into a flat vertical tail where the two rings are attached.
 
I initially tried to use my limited silver solder skills with a flat head nail. I placed the 1/16” diameter nail in my Dremel to spin like a lathe. With a file, I tapered the nail shaft down a bit away from the nail head using photographs as my guide. Then I cut the tip off the nail leaving the nail head and shaft at the proper length. Using the file again, the aft end was flattened vertically to accept the eventual chain rings. Finally, I silver soldered the nail head to the center of a length of 3/32” wide strip of brass.
 
I had hoped the nail head would give me enough surface area for a strong solid joint. Then I could wrap the length of the brass strip around the back edge of the rudder so the nail shaft would protrude aft. At this point I still hadn’t figured out how to attach the rings. This became a moot point when I tried to wrap the solder part onto the rudder, so I would know how much I had to trim the straps. The soldered joint broke apart and the nail fell off.

Rudder Iron (Chain Iron)
I decided that before I install the rudder to the yet to be installed hull gudgeon hinges, I better fabricate and install the rudder iron to the rudder while it’s still off the model. On the MS plans it looks similar to a simple tuning fork with a couple rings at the aft end. Looking at photographs, it’s a bit more complicated…of course. The kit does not provide any hardware for this item so it’s a scratch build. Once more the practicum shows how to fabricate it with styrene, while other builders tried other various methods using brass strips and tubes.

Next, the pintle hinges were positioned and CA glued to the rudder while ensuring there was enough space for the gudgeons to slide under the pintles. The picture below is of the pintles dry fit up.

The pintles were fabricated initially as a gudgeon with one extra step. After fabricating the preliminary gudgeons were formed, a length of 1/32” brass rod was sliced into five 1/8” pieces using the razor saw for clean cuts. These 1/8” pieces were inserted into the gudgeons converting them into pintles and fastened with CA glue to complete the process. CA glue was used because it set quickly, was strong, neat, and needed no additional cleanup.

Using fine toothed hand saw, the hinges were cut apart. I thought about using my Dremel with a rotary saw or cutting disc, but I realized I couldn’t hold my hand steady enough for a clean cut. A few finishing touches with a file to clean off and smooth the edges, and the hull side hinges and gudgeons were formed.

The hull side hinges consisted of two parts, the strap structural element that attached to the hull and the gudgeon. The trick was to form the five gudgeons in perfect alignment so the rudder would be able to pivot smoothly. This was something that Ken Forman made note of. I modified his method so I could not only maintain alignment but made the silver soldering easy.
 
First, I formed the hinges by wrapping the copper strips over a 3/8” thick piece of stock basswood. Then I drilled a 1/32” hole into a piece of wood so a length of 0.032” stiff music wire could be inserted. A length of 1/16” brass tube was slipped over the music wire. The five hinge straps were draped over the same piece of wood that was used to form them and clamped on either side. The block of wood holding the music wire with the brass tube was then held in place over the hinges with a rubber band. When silver soldering paste was dabbed onto each hinge and the brass tube positioned onto the hinges, everything was in place. With a couple of passes with a small torch, the tube was soldered to all five hinges assuring the gudgeons would be perfectly aligned.