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My Steering Contraption


Dave R1

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At the request of Adla and Phil, the Creek Freak, here is a drawing of my steering contraption. I think this is better than any picture I could take since it is impossible to photograph the insides of the laz now. Well I suppose I could borrow a fiber scope from work but they'd probably frown on that.

steering2.jpg

Anyway, here's a description to go with the drawing.

The steering shaft (3/4" diameter) and the pillow block bushings came as a set called a buffing mandrel. The shaft has a lefthand threaded end and nut. I cut a keyway in the shaft to match the keyway on the hub of the steering wheel (an ebay special). There are collars on the outside ends of the shaft next to the bushing which keep the shaft in place. The bushings have oil ports in the top.

The L-shaped pieces are 2" aluminum angle stock. I drilled the center hole over sized so the shaft would pass through without touching. I also drilled it for a couple of half inch bolts on either end. The aluminum angle and the pillowblock bushings are mounted on a 1x4 mounted between transom and lazarette. Although you could put that board in later, I did it before the sides went on.

There are three sprockets between the two AL angles. I didn't draw in the teeth but they are sprockets. These sprockets came from the local farm supply store and come as two pieces. You buy the hub to fit the shaft and the sprocekt to fit the chain and weld them together. The sprockets are all the same but the hub for the center one is 3/4" and the other two are 1/2". The two side sprockets prevent the chain from coming off the center sprocket.

The chain, #40 roller chain, was cut to length and threaded through the sprockets. I calculated the length required to get stop to stop rudder travel in, I think, about 300

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Clearly Doc you aren't an over engineer like me. I even have a PHD in Over Engineering. Give me anything you can think of and I'll make it more complex. Even Rube Goldberg can't hold a candle to me. :D

Actually, you can make drawings like that with the right software. I use a program called SketchUp for that sort of thing. Easy and intuitive to use.

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Phil, thank you. If you're interested, I did a modified version this afternoon. It adds an idea I got from a link posted in the other steering thread and would improve the geometry of the cable to stub tiller interaction.

BTW, SketchUp (SU) as a free trial that gives you 8 hours of time to play with the program to see if you like it. Give it a go. Also, download the freeware viewer from them. I'll send you the SketchUp model of my steering mechanism and you can look at it without burning up your trial time. I have done some woodworking related tutorials for SketchUp that you might want to look at. Some are on a website and others I would have to e-mail to you. Let me know if you want them.

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