I heard that Bud Taplin had 5 tillers remaining made the original W32 specs. I rushed to order one because mine started to delaminate a little bit. It arrived this week. Good thing. I looked again at the old tiller today. OMG Over the winter in New Bern it delaminated the rest of the way. Thank God I ordered that from Bud. On a boat like ours, the hull, the mast and the tiller/rudder are the three most critical of all components.
Here's the new tiller laid out on Dave's dining room table. It's a beautiful piece of work. It is made of laminated ash and mahogany.
My job this weekend is to add the decorative knotting like we had on the old tiller (See the second picture below.) Libby and I are very fond of that knotting. It is very comfortable on the hands. Considering how many hours per year we spend holding it, that's a big deal.
I've never done decorative knotting before. This style is called overhand grafting. The ends are concealed by turks head knots. I've been practicing turks heads all week. I'll photograph the final when the new tiller is installed.
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are you planning on adding more coats of varnish prior to your knotting project? the reason I ask is I purchased one of these several years ago and mine came with minimal coats. I haven't installed it yet and before I do I may strip it, apply 2 coats of epoxy, and then 6-8 coats of varnish before I use it.
ReplyDeleteI sewed a Sunbrella tiller cover for my old Pearson 26. No more varnishing and no more delamination.
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