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.