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Queen Elizabeth Build - Rudders and Steering
With drive installed, the next thing I like to work on is installation of the rudder and rudder servo to allow the ship to steer (I forgot to get pictures during this step as I was originally building the Queen Elizabeth, so I went back and took the photos below).
With dual rudder ships like the Queen Elizabeth, it is generally best to get a rudder behind each prop so-as to direct as much of the thrust from the props into forcing the turn (for sharper turning). You can just see the two 1/8" sleeves protruding down through the hull directly in front (form this view) of each prop.
I originally used a hand-carved wooden rudder (on right) but eventually replaced it with a more horizontal rudder (for more thrust re-direction) rudder that was 3D printed.
The rudder shafts are slipped up through the 1/8" tubing from underneath, each capped with a gear (I 3D printed these) held on with a 4-40 set screw. As you can see in the picture at left, a large control gear is then mounted on a pin such that it meshes with each rudder gear so both gears will turn together when the control gear rotates. A servo is attached to the control gear by way of a stiff piano wire "Z-bar"
note: the large control gear is important as it allows the rudders to fully turn (~ 90 degrees) with only about a 1/4 turn of the control gear - that way the linkage arm never needs to go so far that it tries to go full circle when returning to center and locks the rudders into each other. Since this photo was taken I have since been replacing the control gear and linkage with 1/4" pitch plastic chain that runs around each rudder cog and a large cog mounted directly on top of the servo)
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