I decided to work on the rudder bar today. There were two original rudder bars with our project and when they were disassembled, I noticed that one set of hardware was cut !
The picture below shows the tube that extends through the rudder bar and into the casting. (more about this assembly later).

So, an extension had to be made. I took some .125 tubing and matched it to the original piece. Since this bar rotates in the casting, it would have to be smooth....and straight.

Here's the weld.

A little time on the grinding wheel and sander produced this.

Cut on the saw to exactly 4 inches to match.

Here's the rudder bars after some good cleaning and several coats of epoxy varnish. I kind of like the "used" new look. The above mentioned pieces fit in these holes.

Now it was time to tackle the rudder horns. They are 10 3/8 in. in the back side, which is bigger than the elevator horns. But, my jig worked fine, with a little modification.
Like the other horns, I cut the pattern out of cardboard and transfered to .025 sheet steel. One thing I did differently (I do learn occasionally) was to pre-bend the trailing edge. This gives the horn the nice rounded shape on the spine rather than two pieces of steel at a sharp angle.
I did this by shaping the edge on a spare piece of small tubing with a tack hammer.

Then the steel was placed on the jig and the trailing edge was tapped into the final shape. There's a process here - tap into shape and tack weld a few inches. Move the jig down the vice and repeat.

Here it is after a few tacks.
I'll finish welding this next week.
Also had a chance to rough cut one of the rudder trailing edge brackets. The wire/turnbuckle assembly attaches here.
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Till next week
Brian