Steps in Building a SCAMP sailboat

Links to all my scamp building pages.

Installing the Pintles and Gudgeons
onto the Scamp Rudder Case.

The ancy-fancy Davey & Co. bronze pintles and gudgeons have arrived. They are very pretty, like boat jewellery.

In Canada a small shop called Tendercraft distributes Davey & Co products. They also carry wooden boatbuilding supplies such as copper nails, cedar strips, paint, oars and other hard to locate parts.

Preparing the hardware

The first thing I did was take a good look at the parts and measure them for accuracy and fit. Sometimes I'm just lucky. The case is about one millimetre larger than the opening of the gudgeon. I say about because the gudgeon is not perfectly flat on the inside of the prongs. Since I'm planning to make shallow depression on the case this does not matter at all. Any uneven surface will be compensated by the bedding compound which dries quite hard. I'm planning to use 3M 4200.

What was more disturbing was that the prong, legs? tynes? were not parallel to each other and not square to the back part. The legs were not straight either but rather had a slight curve. Luckily there was not twist.

I was terrified of breaking the parts if I started bending them. I had no idea how brittle the metal was. I went to the wooden boat forum to get some advice and found out that this alloy was malleable. It's called gunstock alloy.

Once reassured, I carefully measured the part and bent them square and straight. There is very little spring-back so it was easy to correct the bends.

I marked the position of the pintle on the rudder case. I allowed a slightly larger slot to make it possible to wiggle the part to align it with the bottom part so they will be perfectly aligned. The pintle is almost perfectly square, I measured a 1 mm discrepancy at the very end of the pintle. That's very good.

I used a chisel to make the groove but the router would have done just as well. I cut the glass with a knife and just chiseled out the first ply. That was all the depth I needed.

After making the grooves on both sides of the rudder I rounded the angle so the pintle would fit in better. This worked well and the pintle slid in with almost no slack.

This set has a pintle on the rudder case and one on the transom. They will be too long and I'll have to cut them.

I had to be very careful positioning the parts so I would not drill through the copper pipe or into the opening for the tiller or rudder blade.

I did a dry run and everything seemed to line up correctly. I'll need to drill the holes but I don't have the nuts and bolts yet so I'll wait for correct size before drilling. Davey & Co suggest silicon bronze or stainless steel. They do not recommend brass.

The groove got a thin coat of epoxy. I expect I will paint it at least with one coat, when I paint the rudder case.

emails: Christine

This web site reflects my personal ideas and doesn't represent anyone else's point of view. I record the process I have followed and the result. I am not saying that it is the right or best way. I'm not a greatly experience builder. I just sort of bumble on and try to do as well as I can. Hopefully I get a boat at the end.