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PostPosted: Tue May 15, 2012 12:44 pm 
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Joined: Wed Sep 07, 2011 8:16 am
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Location: West Michigan (Grand Rapids, Holland Area)
A while ago I read a thread about a guy who took a set of old style rudder castings (H14/H16 style)and made them adjustable. I have a extra set of rudder castings laying around and access to some decent equipment to do it. So I'd like to give it a shot(unless someone who reads this has a set of adjustable rudder castings for sale, cheap). I can't seem to find the thread though, searched here and a couple of other sites, does any one know about this thread or have any advice on this project? It always helps to see how and what other people did before jumping in blind, no worries though, I'm not afraid of jumping in blind either.

Thanks in advance

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Cesar (Cez) S.
H16 - "He gone!"


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PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2012 9:49 am 
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Location: Detroit, MI
The "poor man's" way to do it is to drill out the rivet in the upper casting and elongate the holes fore and aft so that there's a slot on each side.

Insert a bolt through the slots (which now replaces the rivet) and adjust fore/aft to take the slop out of the system.

I know a guy who did this on his 14 - I'll see if I can get some pictures this weekend.

There used to be a kit that would install a plate in the upper casting, but unless you can find it as NOS at a dealer, it's unavailable now.


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PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2012 10:09 am 
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Location: Satellite Beach, FL
I am in th process of drilling the holes for this kit yjat I bought a while back.

http://db.tt/pJlxOQur

It is no longer available but you may be able to machine a similar slug or even forego the slug and just drill a channel like the slug has.

Just thought this might be something constructive for you toget ideas from.

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PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2012 11:58 am 
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Location: West Michigan (Grand Rapids, Holland Area)
I'm not too proud to say that I might just try "the poor man's way" haha, thanks Matt. Concept seems solid enough to work.
I was actually looking into doing the slot and plate up top, I can make the plate and machine the casting here. The only thing is I haven't really seen the internals of the "top slot" setup other than on a boat.

Zach, thanks for the info, I haven't seen those parts yet, the guy I sailed with last night has the threaded plate, I can't tell what else there is though.

After hearing Matt's concept I"m thinking about going one up on the poor man idea and adding slots as mentioned then taking a rod (stainless or aluminum) and drilling and tapping the ends that with screws would retain the pin. This would prevent the threads of the screw from digging into the plastic cam.
Alternatively, I could use a clevis pin and only tap one end for a retainer screw, or slide a bushing over the screw.

They all seem like just about the same amount of work, you do have direct force vs perpendicular force, meaning that the horizontal adjustment might tend to slide easier on impact (something that would kick up the rudders), but maybe not if the cam does its job. Still seems worth a try.

The thing that I don't understand about the "plate" concept is what keeps the plate from going up and down? Some type of bushing, spacer, or magic.

Wow, I still don't have the thread but some solid ideas and info, enough to try something then do a write up. Thanks for the spark guys

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H16 - "He gone!"


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PostPosted: Thu May 17, 2012 8:47 am 
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The threaded plate is held in place by a channel that is cast into the casting. The original castings are hollow in that location.

This listing shows another way to modify the original castings by using a slotted plate. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hobie-Cat-14-16 ... 30&vxp=mtr


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PostPosted: Fri May 18, 2012 9:01 am 
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Location: West Michigan (Grand Rapids, Holland Area)
That seemed like the way to go at first, I'm already going to make a plate so it might as well have the slot in it also, then I can just drill a hole in the casting instead of machining a slot.
BUT
Adjustment, doesn't seem like you can adjust rake with the rudder down since you have to access the bottom since there has to be a nut or something down there. I also think that big benefit would be being able to see and mark the location of the bolt in the slot so that you can see positioning without checking with a square edge, tape measure, and four hands every time.

The poor man's method also has a flaw, you need to have a way to keep the bolt/screw/bushing or whatever parallel to the face of the cam that it meets up with in two directions, I think that a mill can reach through the entire casting in one pass, if not I'll be slotting on the top to avoid alignment issues.

I'm going to start this project next week so I'll update the status and outcome.

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PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2012 8:58 pm 
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Done - In beta testing now, they seem to work pretty well though, the only thing is that I have my rudder tension set a little bit lower for easier kick up, reason being is that pressure on the rudder goes directly onto the adjustment screw and wants to move it.
There are two primary advantages to the newer stock hobie system,
first is what i mentioned above, direct feedback on the adjustment screw.
second is that when you tighten the screw it wants to roll aft on the slot, I just used a spacer to keep it from moving.

Also I used a brass sleeve over a 5/16" screw instead of a 3/8" screw, just to help protect the cam. First choice was stainless but the hardware store was out of stainless. Since I'm only in fresh water I'm not too worried about it, but in salt water use I would use something else, because aluminum + brass + salt water = corrosion.

I opened up the hole on a bridgeport in the tool room at work they are about 1.25" long now, more travel than I really need, especially aftward. But since I was kind of guessing I went with the too much over too little approach.

Here are a few pictures:
Image
Image
Image
Image

I made two sets mainly because I had an extra set, assuming that this would work just fine and that I wouldn't need to revert. Risky move but so far so good.
The extra set is for sale, $90 shipped with all hardware and brass sleeve (ebay link above was $190), if you are in a salt water area I'll try to see if the hardware store has aluminum or stainless sleeves that I'll ship in place of the brass. PM if interested. For the record still beta sold as is though I am pretty happy and confident with them after about a half dozen times out.

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Cesar (Cez) S.
H16 - "He gone!"


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PostPosted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 6:05 am 
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Location: West Michigan (Grand Rapids, Holland Area)
Got a PM about this and thought that I would share the info:
Hey Don, sorry for the delay in reply but here are the answers in red:


Message subject: question about your DIY rudder castings

1. What size bit did you use to cut the slot?
I used a 3/8" diameter cutter on a old bridgeport mill, on my first attempt I used a resharpened cutter bit which had apparently been resharpened too many times, slot was too small, be sure to use a new one.
2. Whats the best way to layout the cut? Did you just measure down from the top of the arm to the center of the original hole. I'm wondering if that is the best way to keep the cut level with the cam.
There are definitely better ways to do it than I did, I assumed that the top of the rounded face of the casting would be a good datum for me to fixture off of and run my slot parallel to, I fixtured and slotted based on the assumption, they seem to work fine although they could probably work a little better and I had a friend that couldn't get my second set to work on his boat, not sure why and didn't have the time to help him figure it out which we probably could, there definitely could be some data collected to make it a little more of a controlled process and I'll share what I find out when I take the time to make tweak and tune mine.
I brought the cutter down in the existing hole then cut in +x and -x directions .55" each way, most people don't have a tool room handy like I do, if you don't have access to a milling machine of some type.... try to find one, or good luck, there are certainly ways to do it without I'm sure, you could probably mark and drill small pilot holes then clean out the nibbles with a pencil grinder, which would take a decent amount of time and patience to do probably


3. In one of your pics in that thread it looks like you have some nylon washers between the casting and the top of the hull. Whats the purpose for that?
I use those nylon washers where ever I can in my rudder system to tighten things up, in the case that you are mentioning I have them there to remove play which I think helps as much or more in trailering than on the water(bounce bounce). I had missing gelcoat in that area when I got the boat so it made sense to me to protect it in some way.

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