Rob's latest designs, to the best of my knowledge, are on the group files section in "Rough beam rudders & fea of rudder supports" and are also briefly mentioned in the latest newsletter at http://www.harryproa.com/newsletter0608.htm .  Keep in mind that the photos of the rudder are a rough mock-up made for testing, and are not meant to be a final design.

  If the stock were lengthened, it could allow for raising and lowering.  As it is, it should allow for kicking up in either direction.  Best of all, it's relatively simple, and the difficult design and testing are already underway (well, at least the design and analysis).

  It will be interesting to see the final version that gets installed on Blind Date.

        - Mike

Gardner Pomper wrote:

I am completely in agreement on not building anything right away. I mostly post my layouts and especially the rudder designs to get feedback exactly like this. I would really, really, really love to see drawings of the latest thinking in rudder design. Mike, it sounds like you have seen Rob's latest? Is it posted in the forums somewhere  and I just haven't noticed?

My basic question is how to combine lifting and kickup while also providing wheel steering. The drawing currently posted tries to provide that, but has that hinge below the support struts. The one I posted before allowed for a solid shaft, and would raise and kick up with break-aways at the beam and at an upper support, for kicking up in different directions, but it would swing out and I don't know how to attach a quadrant to it.

If there is a better design, I would love to just start including it in my layout drawings, just so that I get a feel on the space and attachments required.

I will shortly be posting an idea I had for folding beams, to go along with some of my layouts. It is a refinement of the idea of a pivoting beam supported under the ww bridgedeck. I will be hoping to get feedback on this too. It seems like the rudders and some sort of folding mechanism are the main things that still need some development on the Harry's and I am excited to be part of that, even if I just drive discussion by posting bad ideas <grin>.

Thanks for all the comments. I am constantly learning.

- Gardner