Wooden Tiller Maker?

[JumbleDuck]

I had my new tiller made by Ben Dallimore. The woodwork was beautiful, but the varnish finish was pathetic and started coming off in weeks. I replaced it with the original, stripped and recoated it, and ever since it has lived down my quarterberth as a spare.

 

[John the kiwi]

Well here is an old thread!
I made my own laminated tiller of Ash and teak like hardwood. (I and the forestry graduates i work with cant quite figure out the species!)

I am an averagely good woodworker, but this was one of the easiest and most satisfying projects i have done.

All i did was work out the double curve i needed then draw that curve centered about the centreline of a piece of 200 x 50 pinewood. The cut along the the curve with a bandsaw (or square cutting jigsaw) to create two sides of the clamp jaws.
Then I cut strips of ash and the hardwood about 50 mm wide by 6 mm thick . What i wanted at the base was 9 laminates so the hardwood was top and bottom.
Mixed up a batch of epoxy glue and clamped the strips between the jaws.
Only needed 4 or 5 clamps to clamp up the whole assembly.

After the glue dried, i worked with a spokeshave and sander to create the square to round.

The end product has all the flexibility and give of a lump of cast iron.

Lesson learned: if i was doing it again i would take the time to taper the strips in thickness as the round end is thinner than the stock end and it would look just a bit better.

 

[Ruffles]

Well worth making a canvas cover for it. The varnish will last forever.

 

[wf2]

Sadly Tony MacKillican is responding to tiller requests with a message that he has had a bad accident and is unable to make tillers now. He does not state if this is temporary or permanent.

 

[matt1]

Shame about Tony, he made some lovely locker doors for one of my boats. Old thread I know, but surprisingly easy to make a curved laminated tiller yourself and highly rewarding. Use an old pallet and screw chocks in it to for the shape using the existing tiller then layer up ash and Iroko with epoxy. Clamp then sand the epoxy off once cured

 

[wf2]

Helpful suggestion Matt,
I have re-glued mine to get me through this season but the softer layers are not going to last much longer.
Donald (wf2)