carbon Tiller

That is one piece that İ really enjoyed building. İt was rather quick to do and the materials were pleasant to work with.

İ am not sure why but İ had this obsessive idea of building my tiller with two ply skins and a foam core. For whatever reason İ did not feel like building it just out of foam.

So the first thing İ did was use a straight stick place it on the boat as if it was the tiller. Got all my measurements from there - length, height, where to start and finish curves etc...

From there , İ used flat scrap piece of ply, reported all the measurements previously taken and used a long flexible batten to draw the curves.

Little screws were used to secure and force the batten into shape.



Once the basic tiller shape was drawn on the ply sheet, İ cutted it out and dry fitted it on the boat to make sure the basic dimensions looked ok.

After minor adjustments to the shape, İ used this template to cut out the two definitive sides İ used for my pink foam sandwich.

Here they are temporarly fixed. A tiller is soon to be born !

The rest was basically a pink mess. I use the plywood skins to cut a slightly larger piece of pink foam and routed a channel on the foam into which the ply would fit on both sides, then hand sanded the whole thing to the point İ was satisfied ....and looked like a pink panther to whoever would walk in me in my garage.

This is what it looked liked just before lamination........................

.......................and the after lamination with carbon tape and sleeve

İ will let it cure, then sand it and finish it with a clear coat. Since this is my first carbon part, İ am not sure what it will look like but İ hope İ will manage to come close to Chad's part.

İf İ dont, well then İ will just paint the whole thing plain white !