Test Rudder Broken, but.....

The headline here has to be that I broke another rudder.  Here are the details. I came up with a way to hold the wood spar in the right location without attaching it to either side. I was thinking about something Bryan said about leaving the spar too long at the start. So I left the spar too long and supported the overhang at either end of the jig using a threaded height adjustment.

What you may to be able to see is a T nut installed on some furring strip with a bolt threaded into it. This way I can adjust the height of the spar (to align to marks on the rudder).  All was going very well, I had the rudder compressed (using clamps and some 2x4s for bearing plates at the trailing edge).

This picture was before I had done the spar support thing.  I was re-doing all of this (with the spar in). and pretty much had it all together. I was trying to squeeze out a last tiny bit of gap between the spar and the inside of the rudder face when it cracked right down the front edge. A couple of things to consider. One, I don't think my leading edge goop was fully cured. It was about 24 hours since I put it on, but is has been cold. Two, I'm beginning to question the wisdom of the wedges. Specifically I wonder if they are robbing the rudder faces of a degree of freedom they need as they try to rotate about the leading edge. I could likely confuse myself hopelessly trying to figure that one out. Instead I will make a new test set of rudder faces and try this exact approach (hopefully in less of a rush). This time without wedges and with letting the leading edge goop get actually cured.