Fillets Fixed, Building Rudder

I retired Oct. 10 so am finding more time to get some work done on the boat.  I finished chiseling and sanding the bad fillets and have now covered them over with new fillets.

You may remember from my previous post that I had applied the fillets when it was too warm and I was unable to smooth them out before they set.  I chipped and sanded out the bad spots and re-covered the fillets--this is a huge improvement--not as good as some I have seen in other blogs, but they will serve the purpose of both strengthening the joint and allowing the fiberglass cloth, to be applied later, a smooth curve to bend around.

Yesterday I began building the rudder, which seems fairly simple, except that it is tapered from the front to the back, but not at the top where the tiller will slot in.

The rudder consists of two sheets of plywood with wood "blocking" separating them.  The wider blocking at the top of the picture is 3/4" thick; the bottom blocking (to the left) tapers from 3/4" at the front to 1/4" thick at the rear of the rudder.  The  vertical blocking is tapered from 3/8" to 1/4" all along its length.  The more complicated part is the "triangular" block, which has a compound taper from 1/4" to 3/4", so that it is supposed to be a full 3/4" thick all along the edge that butts to the wide blocking.  I was a little over-zealous with my sanding so the triangular block is a little too thin at the bottom edge.  So it does not make good contact with the plywood there, but only for less than 1/2", and I am filling the gap with thickened epoxy so I don't think it will cause a problem.

Here the blocks are glued and clamped (the wider block at the top was glued yesterday).

And here is a closer shot of the compound-taper area clamping on the triangular block.  You can see the gap, but again it is very narrow and I am going to fill it. The block is in full contact with the plywood from the less than 1/2" to the top.   I clamped blocks of wood on the outside top and bottom to keep the triangular blocking in place and help the plywood conform to the curve.  At the top right you can barely make out the slot where the tiller will fit.  Another sheet of plywood will be glued to the top after these parts cure.