New Steering wheel for Julie K

[Dave R1]

Last weekend I started on a new steering wheel for my sailboat. (Funny, that boat was "finished" four years ago but I'm still making stuff for it. ) I made the spoke blanks which I sent off to a friend who kindly volunteered to turn them for me. They are laminated up from cherry and hard maple.

This weekend I made a trammel for my P-C trim router, milled the stock for the felloes, (the parts that form the rim of the wheel. They are called felloes on a wagon wheel, too.) and got the inner felloes cut to shape.

I had enough stock cut to the size of the spoke blanks to stand in for the ones my friend will be making so I could at least get this far.

The trammel was a bit of a challenge to work out. There aren't any extra screw holes on the bottom of the stock router base and there's not really that much vertical travel so the base couldn't be too thick. Since I have plenty of scraps I worked out what you can see in the pictures. I started by replacing the plastic base with one made from a scrap of 3/8" lauan ply I had left over from the boat. I used a piece of 12mm baltic birch ply for the trammel itself. I cut a channel in it for the new router base so it is a snug, slip fit. You can see some bits of pine on top that form the rails to hold the router down. Locking the router in place is a simple matter of drilling a hole and driving a screw through the rail, the base plate and the trammel. Not sophisticated but it works.

The next step is to make the two outer felloes rings and then I need to get the real spokes in place so they can be milled to receive those out felloes.

Thanks for looking.

[JeffM]

Very professional looking! (Myself, I'm the kind of guy who looks at the mess he's made of epoxy work, cocks his head, and decides its a fine non-skid surface.)

[Dave R1]

Jeff, I'm not done yet. I might end up painting the thing. :roll:

Thanks for the compliment.

[capt jake]

Wow, a lot of thought given to that project. Nice looking joinery!

[Greg Luckett]

The pics and explainations are great for showing us a good way to accomplish this task. Thanks for sharing. I am looking forward to seeing the next steps to completion.

[kydocfrog]

Looking nice.

DocA

[Dave R1]

Thanks. Here's a few more pics from over the weekend.

Routing the outer felloes. They are glued together with CA gel which forms a very strong bond. Since they are difficult to clamp because of the angle, the CA is very handy. After the glue cures in a few seconds, a screw was put in to hold the piece in place.

After the outer felloes rings were made, all the felloes pieces got round overs at the router table. Here you can see the inner felloes returned to the jig. They are shimmed to center them on the stand in spoke blanks.

Here is one of the outer felloes rings laying in place on the wheel. The next step is to set up the trammel so that I can rout the notches in the spokes for the outer ring.

[kevgrn114]

Looks great!! Where did you get the brass hub?

[Dave R1]

Thanks Kevin. The hub is the one from the old wheel. I got that old wheel through ebay for about $26. The least expensive simliar one I could find in a recent search was $40 (not through ebay) which is still less than the bronze hubs I could find by themselves.

I've got some ideas for making a hub along with some improvements to the construction jig that I want to explore but I need to get this wheel and the new rudder box done first.

I have the spokes now and they are cut for one outer felloes ring but I've been too busy with other things to do much more or take any pictures. Soon, hopefully.

[Dave R1]

Right! You lot already forgot about my steering wheel project. Probably thought it beat me and I gave up. Well, not yet but I'm getting close to considering what color I should paint it.

Actually, I've been working on the wheel mostly in very short periods due to other things going on. I've also forgotten to take pictures as I went. I finally remembered to haul the camera out and get some shots and here they are.

First, the wheel as it sits now.

I've got the entire wheel assembled and in this shot you can see the bungs in the screw holes on the front. The wheel is glued together with epoxy slightly thickened with fumed silica. There are screws into the spokes but they aren't really useful once the epoxy has cured. the bumngs are "glued" in with spar varnish which is what I'll use to finish the wheel. The varnish will hold the bungs in place just fine and there won't be an unsightly glue lines around the bungs.

the inisde ends of the spokes were varnished since I'll never have access to the ends again.

Here are the bungs for the opposite side.

As you can see, I cut the bungs nearly free but left a very thin bit of wood so they stay together. This made it possible to dip them into the varnish and place them without getting varnish on my fingers. after dipping the bung in the varnish, I set it in place over the hole and drove it in with a little hammer which also managed to break the bung free of the strip. Leaving the bungs in the strip also makes it easier to align the grain.

And, FWIW, here's the steering shaft made by a friend from a bit of stainless steel round stock. The center is drilled and tapped for a machine screw and a key way is cut to mate with the keyway in the hub. the key is glued into the keyway with CA glue.

[Ken_Potts]

Wow Dave,

Looking good there.

I was thinking ahead about the construction of my tiller today and now I think I'll just go find a baseball bat and glue it to the rudder. (That wheel's so much nicer than my tiller plan...)

Thanks for sharing the process.

[Frank Hagan]

Wow Dave' date='

I was thinking ahead about the construction of my tiller today and now I think I'll just go find a baseball bat and glue it to the rudder. [/quote']

I know you're half joking, but a lot of people do use axe handles as tillers on small boats. They are made of ash or hickory, are about the right shape, and are cheap.

[Ken_Potts]

Frank, I almost typed "Axe-handle" but then I realized that wasn't a bad idea so I switched to baseball bat

[Frank Hagan]

Baseball bat is definitely funnier! I was surprised when I saw an axe handle used as a tiller ... it really looked like it belonged there.

Of course, if you have what looks like a million dollar wheel, you wouldn't want axe handles anywhere near your boat! Good work, Dave!

[Bill Paxton]

UN-BEE-LEEVABLE!

If you bring the Julie K to Lake Pepin I probably won't even take the cover off of my boat.

[Dave R1]

Thanks Ken, Frank and Bill.

No worries Bill. If the weather and my free time don't cooperate here pretty soon I won't get the boat ready in time anyhow.

By the way, the main reason I chose maple and cherry for the steering wheel is that they take paint pretty well.

[dustywaves]

Hey Dave, fantastic job!

Dumb question: how does the hub fix to the spokes?

Cheers

[Dave R1]

John, thank you.

Your question isn't so dumb. The spokes are a just a snug fir into the hub. No mechanical or chemical fastening. I've thought about adding some screws but it doesn't seem like they're needed.

[Ken_Potts]

Dave I'm glad I'm not the only one who paints pretty wood from time to time...

[Dave R1]

Ken, I set 50% wood filler as the limit. If I go over that, I paint.