Hope the gluing up of the rudder blades has gone well. I also had problems with the plywood failing while bending the ply around. On the second blade I thought it was all good, but then as I was tightening the clamps the plywood began to crack just in from the epoxy filler at the front of the blade. It ended up a bit of a mess, but rather than discard the rudder blade I was able to repair by cutting out the damaged section of plywood and inserting a section of solid timber.
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I wondered if the failures I experienced were as a result of overfilling the leading edge with the epoxy putty mix, and I was making the rudder blades in very cold temperatures which I also thought might have contributed to the ply cracking. But that would not apply in north Queensland.
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David
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From: k-designs@... Sent: Saturday, July 6, 2019 7:41 AM To: k-designs@... Subject: Re: [k-designs] New ECO6?
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Thanks, Bryan! I appreciate your comments..
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It so happens that I have been poring over your blog, especially the rudder part, over the last week. Also Hamish¡¯ photos and the KD650 Sparta blog have been very useful.
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I have closed up the angle a little. Today Is bending day! I¡¯m reasonably confident that the foil will close without breaking. Fingers crossed.
Rien, in many cases the quality of plywood today causes failures of the rudder foils when bending them in the jig. Close the angle up a bit with spacers and do a small test. You can check my building blog for my Duo 480 and scroll through the older pages to find the photo of the wedge? sitting on my sawbench that is an angle that will work. The foil is the same for Eco 5.5 and KD650 so probably same for the Eco6.
