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Modifications to Tiller

Summary
(please click on any of the pictures for a larger one - use the BACK button to come back)

The big bracket that clamps the tiller to the rudder was broken when I bought the boat. The weld had failed once, was re-welded, and had broken again. Signs of a bad design.

The bracket had the tiller arm bar welded to the flat plate metal. The arm was 3ft long and provided quite a large lever force for the simple butt weld at the plate. I wanted to reinforce that area so that it wouldn't break again.

Also, the wooden tiller was pretty mashed up where it pivots on the stainless sweep arm. There was a small metal stop that was put in with wood screws to the bottom of the tiller. Needless to say, the screws were just about falling out, and the tiller didn't have much left in it to hold.

I took the bar to a local stainless welder and had them weld two support bars onto the frame. At the end of these, I use two stainless rail bases bolted all the way through the rudder to support the force placed on the arm. You'll have to click the picture, but I also had them weld in a gusset plate partway up between the two arms extending from the original bracket. It is also welded all along the short font edge of the bracket. This helps some of the side-to-side forces from the tiller. This setup is now REALLY solid.

To fix the wooden tiller, I cut a 1/4" piece of aluminum and through-bolted it to the tiller with large-head carriage bolts. This, of course, after drilling oversized holes and re-filling with epoxy. The overhang at the bottom is the new stop arrangement for when the tiller pivots down. I pre-drilled two holes in the aluminum and tapped them for 8-32 machine screws.

The stopper is just thick enough to leave the tiller up at a couple-degree angle. This will let it wear down to just-level over time (I think).

Lessons Learned

I don't know anything about welding and stainless steel finishes.
(well, I know a little more now!)