Commander 147

[Commander 147]

Both of the tillers that came my commander were replacements and neither one worked very well. One was only about 4" longer than the original but instead of a slight rise it had a drop in it and it was a knee knocker. The other while it had a similar rise to the origianl it was about 12" too long. It took up a lot of cockpit space to use it. So tonight I cut up one of the old combing boards and resawed it into strips 5/16" thick. I built a jig to match the profile in the manual and glued the first one up. I figure it can't hurt to have a spare so I'm going to make two while I'm doing it.

If anyone wants the jig when I'm done with it and is willing to pay the UPS to get it let me know and it's yours.

[Commander 147]

Just blissfully blundering along like I have never built anything before confident what I'm doing is going to turn out just right.......NOT.....

I know better than to build a jig and do a glue up before testing my template to verify it's really what I want. But did I do that?????? NO

So tonight after work I removed the glue up from the jig (first picture below) and was getting ready to surface the two faces so I could lay the template on it and mark the layout for the bandsaw, I all of a sudden realize I never bolted the template into the rudder head to make sure I was going to be happy with the final result. When I did my heart sunk..... I was sure after looking at the two tillers that came with my commander and looking at the layout of the original in the manual that I would be happy with the original. And that is why I blissfully proceeded without doing what I would normally do and test every step along the way to make sure I liked the direction I was going. But when I bolted it in I realized it was not going to end up at a comfortable height for me and I was going to have to go back to square one.

The second picture below is the two tiller templates bolted into the tiller head. The higher one is the one based on the manual and the lower one is the one I'm going to start making now.

[ebb]

A master woodworker, famous for his furniture, once said to me:

It's all how you go from one mistake to your next mistake.

[Commander 147]

I needed that....

[Ariel 109]

Don't forget to account for some flatting out of the tiller's curves when you take it out of the form.

All the work you've done on your boat is first class.

Ben

[Commander 147]

From what you have shown us so far I expect the same from you. With these 45 year old boats we get plenty of opportunity to prove ourselves don't we?

BTW when I released the tiller glue up I only got about 1/8" spring back which surprised me. I expected more.

[Commander 147]

Well, after playing with several incarnations of the tiller template this is the one I finally settled on. I am 5'11" tall and when I sit on the cockpit seat with a cushion the top of my knee is at 23" above the cockpit floor. I wanted the tiller to clear the top of my knee by a comfortable margin so the bottom of this template is 24-1/2" above the cockpit floor. The original one I made is behind the one I will now need to build. Because I am making a tighter curve I will need to make the strips I glue up thinner to take the curve. So that means I will need to make one or two more strips. That's a project for tomorrow.