your rudder is in such good shape it'd be a shame to slather on the epoxy. that said, mine is epoxied with no ill effects. 10 years of service and a-231's rudder is still dry inside. may be it's luck, but i took the precaution of cutting a notch in the epoxy where the rudder shaft passed thru the rudder's skin and smeared some 5200 on the joint.
Thanks again Bill your experiences are helping me make some choices.
After doing some research, I am seriously considering coating the rudder with CPES until it refuses to accept anymore, then creating a barrier coat on top of that with a thin coat of West System Epoxy. This should prevent (or at least slow down) water intrusion and stiffen the rudder a little. Structurally it might not make that much difference as it will only be resins no glass. I am going to remove the rudder this week so that I can take it indoors where it will dry out better. I have a little while before the temperatures reach epoxy heights so I'll sit on it a while longer and do more research.
Have you reviewed the rudder thread?
http://www.pearsonariel.org/discussi...read.php?t=576
Now that the bilge is cleared of all debris, cleaned out, and dried, and the rudder shoe is removed, I decided to do a little experiment to see if water in the bilge could migrate out through one of the pin holes in the rudder shoe area. The result made itself known about an hour after pouring a gallon of water in the bilge. See below.
that looks familiar..
A-231 had the same issue when I opened the keel void. water was entering the keel from the shoe and the rudder strap. I had to drill the holes oversize, fill with epoxy and re-drill to make the shoe leak free.
Tim, Very confusing shot. It is not clear at all where the removed rudder shoe was mounted, as one would expect to see dapped out areas?
The ruddershoe mounting area on 338 had to be totally rebuilt. Also the factory molding of the thick sections in the keel area may have cooked and frothed creating porosity. Consider a barrier coat.
ebb
I think this is the scale of his picture...
bill
Ebb, here is a shot that shows the area the shoe fits on before I cleaned it up.
The condition of this area is different from what I expected after reading about other's experiences. Let's just say I was pleasantly surprised. You can see more pictures and a detailed description of my plan at www.ariel24.com . Just click on the projects section, then"rudder shoe". The site is updated in terms of projects, but the other sections still need to be added. I wish I didn't have to sleep everyday, I could accomplish so much more.
Last edited by Tim Mertinooke; 04-10-2007 at 11:52 AM.
One more showing what it looked like after I grinded the area.
Hello Tim,
From the looks of the color of the stuff there and what you found elsewhere, notably on your rudder, it looks like a DFO has spent considerable time 'restoring' your Ariel. I would say an owner did the work rather than a professional because of what your forensics found.
Photos of your keel and rudder show extensive use of filler of some sort. I hope your are lucky and that the goop was epoxy based. You can find out by grinding on some of it that you have removed. If it has the characteristic sweet smell of polyester/bondo, it is a filler, NOT a structural fairing compound. Someone else may have an opinion if it is vinylester. Which is a polyester with epoxy in it - and may perform quite well structurally in a paste. I don't know.
I drove 1/2" bronze lags up into the heel befor it was remolded with the shoe (as evidently was done with yours) put in position as the material set up. 338's glob was filled with glass fiber. I would dig a little in that grey stuff to find out what it is doing there.
As I've noted elsewhere the fitting on 338 was held on by one bolt when I got her - the remaining pins went thru plain polyester that had broken into chunks with various attempts to reattach the fitting that had obviously sagged - because there was no fiberglass there. Extra thru bolts had been drilled thru the heel as well - without effect. It's hard sometimes to comprehend what people do. Covering the keelfitting in unreinforced fairing compound may have been an attempt at insurance. Because your baby had similar issues to 338's. Some puttys are pretty strong, maybe you should test some of the stuff you removed in chunks.
The putty/filler/goop/compound can't be all bad, as it evidently did an amazing job preserving the mahagony on the rudder. But ofcourse that may be a rebuild job as well (I mean it looks almost NEW!) - and no doubt crafted by an artist!
I was thinking the same thing. Faith is up on the hard right now, and I have spent a bunch of quality time with her rudder. It looks no where near as nice as that, but it does have the cut out (just like yours) that make them both seem original. I do notice that there is no seam in yours. Mine, and most I have looked at here have a fairly pronounced gap between the panels. Maybe yours is not open since the rudder was so well protected.The putty/filler/goop/compound can't be all bad, as it evidently did an amazing job preserving the mahagony on the rudder. But ofcourse that may be a rebuild job as well (I mean it looks almost NEW!) - and no doubt crafted by an artist!
The previous owner bought the boat in 1974 and told me the rudder was laminated when he bought it. He also told me he never removed the rudder shoe so I'm assuming the rudder/shoe rehabilitation occured before he bought it and both were probably done at the same time (late 60's early 70's?) It seems interesting to me that someone would have gone through so much trouble to laminate a "new" mahogany rudder and a "new" bronze shoe. Maybe there was damage done by a grounding or something, but the shoe shows no evidence of that. If a rudder shoe leak led to the modifications, why did he leave all that nasty foam, etc in the bilge?
The grey color seems to be consistent for this boat's gelcoat. Areas where paint has worn in the transom and on the deck exhibit the same color, as well as areas of keel that I ground. To me it looks like the gelcoat found elsewhere on the boat. I do plan on removing the material until I get to fiberglass. This will allow me dry it out and see if any delamination took place as it was wet for a long time. Compare the colors of the mystery material in the two photos. Did they gelcoat the heel of the keel where the shoe is located or was it bare fiberglass?
Last edited by Tim Mertinooke; 04-10-2007 at 02:24 PM.
dunknow Tim,
Looking at it, by design, how could the fitting leak? It has to go thru solid material. Just forward of it maybe, that is where I too drilled some 'drainage' holes straight up and got 'dry' frp. Drilled two DEEP holes. Then I drilled one thru the side couple inches up and got lucky. Drilled into the sump. That's when I first discovered how thick 338's hull is. Not! There seems to be considerable differences in Ariels. Refilling the deep holes underneath took some thinking too! Side holes, of which I made a few, cause I filled the keel void, are more accessable and can be sealed with a bit of mat over the dished hole and faired.
If I remember correct: the keel holes remained wet for a long time, the side drain hole didn't produce any water, but the holes drilled into the ballast keel area drained a little bit for the longest time. Months. I figured the LAMINATE itself did do a little bit of draining. More like drying. But VERY minimal. Like water under pressure getting into imperfections. If the bottom of the keel gets really cruched somewhere, it's possible delamination could occur that would let in water, even if it still appeared to be in good shape.
I also found water in the filler block encapsulated in the upright keel molding where the rudder swings, it's opposite the hole in the rudder in outboard models. Nobody ever talks about it. That water did enter thru the factory encapsulation and as an entry point could explain some of the water problems a coupla feet below it inside the rudder shoe. I didn't explore it and it seems farfetched. Like the rudder, all rudders being built the same whether for an inboard or outboard Ariel - I would think the hulls were all built the same, and therfore the propeller aperture would be gellcoated along with the rest of the hull, and a filler blank would merely be pasted in place. No interior connection.
Last edited by ebb; 04-10-2007 at 04:07 PM.
I did a quick inspection grind last night to see if the aft part of the keel was indeed fiberglass or built up with some other material. It is indeed glass all the way back and the grey material I really believe is gelcoat. It was the same thickness/consistancy as other areas I have grinded on this boat. The four pin holes show that the area has been wet for some time as there is discoloration around each of them. I'm sure water entered the laminate where the discoloration is, but the integrity of the area I don't believe is compromised. I plan on grinding out with a dremel all of the rotten area (I feel like a dentist), then letting the area dry for a while before filling the ground out areas with epoxy.
Interestingly enough the dripping from the shoe area had stopped last night and I vacuumed my bilge so that it was completely dry. Then I drilled the four pin holes with a drill bit twice the diameter of the original holes to gauge how soft the area was. It seemed solid except for where the bit travelled through the discolored glass which was to be expected. When I went to work this morning I noticed some water had leaked through and frozen last night. I think drilling those holes helped the water escape faster and that grinding out the discolored glass will help dry the laminate out even faster. Ultimate goal: no water entering or leaving my hull from anywhere unless I tell it too.
Gotta love a mystery!
Have to follow where the evidence leads, as Gil Grissom reminds us, not where we think it ought to go.
Gel coat will be dead white. Or darkish blue below the waterline as some owners have found. Translucent greenish stuff is plastic, either polyester or epoxy. Either plain or cloth in it or some kind of filler.
I'm positive, I'm convinced I'm positive, that coming from the factory, the only stuff that fitting would have over it is maybe bottom paint.
Who knows what happened in 45 years?? Very strange!
Last edited by ebb; 04-11-2007 at 08:01 AM.
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