Tiller Project

A couple of days ago I fashioned a new tiller for our pedal boat. The stock tiller was very short and made it uncomfortable to steer the rudder while peddling. Kimberly said, "If it was only just a little bit longer..." and that was my cue to figure something out.

I found an old piece of furniture in the wood pile that came with our house. I have no idea what variety of wood it is but it is tough, it has been sitting in dirt, water and leaves for at least five years and only has some surface damage.

The original plastic handle that we decided was too short.

I cut the furniture piece to length and set up the drill press to angle the shaft so that the tiller handle would clear a jar of salmon eggs.

Drilled, sanded, and ready for a coat of polyurethane.

Tiller hanging from 4 pound test to dry. I sanded after 3 hours and repeated until I had 4 coats of polyurethane. Tiller on the picnic table after 24 hours dry time. (I should probably put some protectant on the table as well.) Kimberly's dad built our picnic table and benches.

I had to remove the shaft from the boat to drill the pilot hole at the correct angle. Counter sinking a little deeper than usual so that there is room to fill a plug of wood glue following the lag screw. That should seal everything up.

Hemp twine was used to reinforce the handle near the shaft. I soaked the twine in polyurethane and then tightly wrapped the wood. Of course I made a mess out of the tiller in the process and had to sand and put a 5th coat of poly on and wait another 24 hours to dry. A small piece of PVC pipe was used as a bushing to keep the twine from wearing. Ace Hardware has a bin of black plugs, hopefully one will fit the shaft tube, Kimberly doesn't think the grey rubber piece looks like it belongs...

While working on the tiller handle there was time to sand and put a new coat of poly on the wood strip for the rod rack. Also changed the screws over to stainless steel and reversed the racks so that we could easily use from inside the boat.

Overall, I am pretty happy with how the project looks and we are very pleased with the functionality, so much easier to reach now.

Fish On! This little boat rocks.

On Thursday, we hooked up with our first fish on the new pedal boat! We put the boat in at the Willow Creek ramp on Lake Natoma, paddled out of the small cove and went across the lake to the river rock piles. We were fishing the points hoping to find some bass or panfish. Kimberly threw out a yellow crappie jig and was smacked the moment it hit the water. The little jig was eaten by an 18 inch carp that gave a terrific fight. She was using her ultra light pole equipped with 4 pound test.               

                                       

Believe it or not there is a fish along with the picture of the finger. We are going to purchase an inexpensive digital camera as the iphone isn't the best camera on a boat.

I was looking on Craig's List and found a trolling motor for cheap. It is an older Minn Kota Turbo 40, five speeds forward and three in reverse. It has 27lbs. of thrust and pushes the boat fast and quiet. I made a make-shift motor mount. I will do something else more permanent soon. I am using a portable jump starter as my battery at the moment but plan on finding a marine battery.
                                      

Until next time...

Pedal Boat Crank Project

Today I started to tinker around with the pedal boat. The first project was to remove the gravel from the pedals. The tiny rocks came with the boat and make an awful squealing/grinding noise when you use the pedals. My phone was handy so I took pictures of the process.

Removed the pedal by inserting a flat object into the larger pair of slots on the pedal. Push down into each slot while gently prying apart the pedal with your fingers. Once you get one side, turn over the pedal.

After removing the pedal all the gravel fell out and left me with a rusty and pitted crank.

Sanded with 100 grit sandpaper to remove the rust and smooth out the pitting on the crank shaft. Hold the paper around the shaft and "pedal" the boat to make the work quick.

 

Crank shaft after sanding.

I masked off the area with a paper bag and sprayed it with Rustoleum.

The pedals cleaned and reinstalled on the crank. The rust stained the plastic on one of the pedals. The paint will wear off but the main purpose of the job was to remove all of that annoying gravel. I am glad that we don't visit too many beaches made of decomposed granite.

Willow Creek Recreation Area, Lake Natoma

We took the paddle boat for an afternoon float today. My aunt told us about the Willow Creek small boat ramp and we thought we would try our luck fishing and take advantage of the opportunity to get a feel for the new boat and how we might want to set it up.

I caught a worm container, a pine cone, and a clam.... sorry, no pic of the worm container hehe.

We trolled the shoreline and let the light wind push us towards folsom lake for about a mile until we came to the little island in the middle of the lake. There was a floating platform with restrooms on it there, they were locked, as well as some pairs of geese gaurding their nests. Some of the geese were apparently not worried about a nest as they were just laying big goose eggs right on the rocky shore.

We also spotted alot of Egrets and Herons diving for fish and feeding the babies in their nests along the shoreline. The birds look like black and white christmas ornaments Reminds me of the way the bald eagles roost in the evergreens above the canneries in Alaska.

Our New Paddle Boat

Kimberly saw an add on Craig's List for a Pedal Boat last Monday... Tuesday evening we were on Folsom Lake making sure the boat was seaworthy.

We purchased a canoe last year and had a lot of fun rowing around and fishing on Lake Natoma and Union Valley Reservoir. We found it hard to fish while paddling a canoe and Kimberly, who had grown up fishing a pedal boat on Lake Oroville, thought it might be a better choice for us.

The previous owner installed a fishing rod storage rack on the boat and I plan on making some custom paddle boat seats and mounting essentials like cutting boards and pole holders for trolling. The first thing I am going to do is lengthen the rudder control handle. The boat is in good shape but is missing one of the paddles on the wheel. It is replaceable. The paddle boat is made by Pelican and is the Riviera model.