Deliminated rudder shaft

I used an older hollow tube metal rudder for my weed rudder buy cutting it down. By the end of the season up here in NE last year, noticed it was getting more and more difficult to use the pedals.

Finally took a look, and noticed the material around the metal core had delaminated expanding the rudder shaft dimensions.

This happen to anybody else before?

The older metal shaft rudders had an aluminium shaft which was prone to corrosion if not washed out with fresh water after each paddle.

If your cut down rudder was one of the aluminium shafted ones then the delamination (growth) around the shaft you are experiencing is the aluminium corroding.

Epic moved to carbon shafts and now more recently stainless steel. No real corrosion problems with either.

Didn't go so far as to cut into the rudder shaft itself, it wasn't exposed/visible through the foam when I cut down the length of the rudder.

of course, it is possible that water did get in and was wicked up, and that's probably what happened. Delamination occured where the shaft enters the boat.

I do a quick wash with hose after saltwater use, but I have a hunch that spot doesn't get a full washing, or at least as much as it should have.

Thanks for the reply!

As far as I saw Epic(you are talking Epic aren't you) rudders originally used hollow stainless shaft material, then solid anodized alloy , then anodized alloy with a flat machined on it for the crossbar, then black fibreglass and now back to hollow stainless ? Only the alloy ones suffered corosion problems once the anodizing wore off, the black glass ones just broke easily.
The ones I opened up had a straight shaft going into the blade and 3 "pins" through the shaft which are embedded into foam core and stop any movement, What exactly has failed in yours Beanboy?