tillers to the wood

Comment by paul anderson on June 8, 2011 at 12:17pm

hey kim,yo know i have just finished building the portside rudder and came up short with the incorrect measurement for the gap to take the tiller head.luckily i realized the situation before it was too late.i screwed in some ss decking screws too as well as wrapping around the spacers with some glass.what timber did you use?

Comment by kim whitmyre on June 8, 2011 at 2:05pm

The original builder (Ontario, Canada, I believe) used North American white oak for everything on the plans that called for hardwood. It is very tough, strong stuff; very dense. The white bands in the picture are the original lashing, still in good shape.

I am thinking that a wrap of similar stuff or glass would be good at the narrow ends, since that is where the glue joint opened up. Once wood moves like this, there's no clamping it back together: that would just re-stress it and something else would give. So I filled the open section with West System's G-Flex epoxy, a really sticky, more flexible epoxy than their regular epoxy, followed by a thin coat of fairing mix.

 

I hope I can get the primer on today, finish paint tomorrow, so I can get back to sailing!

 

It's good you caught that one, Paul. I've done things twice a few times. . .;~)

Comment