NHCAD

Rudder

The javelin has a rudder that is made of wood and covered with fiberglass and a gell coat. The gel coat on my rudder has baddly cracked over the years.

If I painted it, I'm afraid the cracks would show through. I thought I would experiment with the lower section of the rudder first. I removed the lower rudder and sanded it smooth. The cracked gel coat offered plenty of high spots to knock off.

I mixed up a batch of epoxy & filler and smeared it all over one side of the rudder pieces.

After it all dried, I sanded off 90% of the epoxy, which gave a silky smooth surface. It did a fabulous job of filling small cracks and even some bigger chips around the edges. I think the fresh surface will hold paint really well and give it a smooth contiguous surface to glide through the water.

Here are a few shots of additional filler. I realized there were some low spots so I repeated the fill & sand process. Note the texture of the epoxy + red microfiller.

I hung each piece of the rudder from the ceiling of my garage. I primed each peice with Pettit EasyPoxy White Undercoater and then gave them a coat of White. Results speak for themselves.