Green Lake - thanks for the additional thoughts on the rudder and your thoughts that it looked original. Had a couple more questions and some pictures as I started to clean up and lightly sand the rudder before painting.
That's an original rudder which would put doubts as to the presence of wood in the rudder blade.
What were the original rudders made of if not made of glassed over wood / plywood?
As I look closely at the leading edge of the foil where the paint & gel coat have worn down, I can clearly see what looks to me as the layered cross section of plywood, with a clear epoxy over the edge. It is hard to get a good picture. Went through a lot of the previous owner's posts on restoring # 2444, but see no mention of work or building a rudder for this boat. However I do see other posts where he is providing comments on building rudder or heads to others and that he built rudders & heads. May have used original hardware?
Once I gave the rudder a good scrubbing I did a light sanding with 320 grit paper as the surface still felt pretty rough, and then saw that the rudder has previously been painted. I could see some hardened drips.
I had mentioned earlier that I thought that there had been some fairing / filling done to the rudder, because I could feel that the surface had some ridges, and on one side a small bulge. There are two parallel ridges running top to bottom on both sides. When I started to sand the ridges and valleys are now easier to see, and when I get through the paint it looks like gel coat. Not sure what is causing the ridges but it is under the gel coat. See pictures below.
Not looking for
perfect, but don't know if I should keep sanding off the gel coat to make the surfaces straight edge flat before painting with WR-LPU white or not. WDYT?
There are a couple of small scratches that I want to fill. Is there a good, pre-mixed, in the can filler that would be good for this application? I've used Marine Tex before, but I always end up mixing it all up to get the right proportions, which is wasteful.
Also with the WR-LPU paint should I be also purchasing their "Crosslinking hardener" option for painting the foil?
Thanks!