Tiller arms on the cheap??

Agreed. By the time you buy stop bushings with set-screws and tinker with all that, it will be more expensive than paying a machine shop for an hour of labor. Also, you could buy the part off the shelf and save a lot of money. Working at minimum wage for the several days you'll spend to fabricate a low quality tiller, will make you enough to buy them with leftover for beer.

 

Yeah, I'm down.

I only want good and cheap though, not fast.

So the shafts are hollow tube with 1 cm wall thickness. I like the idea of squaring them and locking an arm on, but... doesn't work with hollow shafts does it?

The 316l, compared tocorecell, fiberglass and aluminum is very hard. In fact, it took the shop that turned them to make them smooth seversl hours, like $1000 to turn them.

 

I machine stainless and it doesn't take hours to turn a pipe. It is the same labor as mild steel.

 

There are these modern things called 'welders'. You make up from solid the squared off top section, turn it down to a slip fit in the tube and weld it in place. Piece of pee.

Well of course stainless is harder than frozen snot and shiny wood. Kind of like saying ice cream is hard compared with fresh cream. But it's not *hard* by engineering standards. It's damn soft in fact. Try machining something like hardened 4140 or similar.

I don't know what the shop did for $1000 so I've no idea if that was a fair price or not. Could have been cheap, could have been a ripoff, could have been expensive because they didn't have the right tools for the job.

What you're talking about is a very, very straightforward job for any reasonably equipped machine shop. I could very easily do it in mine, in fact my steering gear is insanely (describes it correctly) complex and precise compared with what you're talking about, and I did it all myself.

PDW

 

Sounds expensive, the Sandvik tube we used to use got no more than a bit of emery in the bearing areas-not a high speed turning item & some clearance in plastic bearings, an armature was welded on the lower area at/to & through about half the blade depth to build up for shaping in timber plus glass, an insert was potted into the tube in way of & above & below lower bearing area, grow foam poured in also to exclude water, as mentioned before tillers were fabricated out of flat, I'd suggest similar or slightly less thickness to the wall of the tube- sometimes in alu- a "box" like structure although components were tapered-angle cuts shared between matching components to save cutting with a pair of through bolts carrying the turning moment, a couple of temporary button tacks held everything in place whilst drilling, also a disc/"donut" applied to the underside to interface the weight of the rudder to top bearing- this got welded to only one side "cheek". On my own boat the stock offcuts got incorperated as the tillers that reached through to an exposed link bar- & spectra lines linked to wheel.
Pretty simple nut n bolt stuff-nylocks used, fabrication was edge to edge with a slight overlap in the setup, push a few 316L/16 rods in & tune /polish..
Jeff.

 

I had a machine shop fabricate my tiller heads from the plans. I supplied the 316 sheet from online metals. Whole thing cost about 600 bucks IIRC., from a notoriously overpriced local shop. In fairness, that may have been reasonable, but I have nothing to compare it to.

They put a plug in the pipes top. and drilled crossways for a pin that connected the collar part of the tiller head (the plan called them "quadrants") The piece pivots on that pin when the rudders are kicked up.

The plans called for keyway, but the machine shop man said that would weaken the pipe too much (schedule 80) I forget the diameter. There may be a better way, but at least I can keep an eye on the bolt connections etc.

 

Very interested in buying some.

Could you show me where to find them for 2" o.d. shaft? Reasonable price?

 

Machine shop rates in the USA range from $40/hr to $80/hr for manual machining. I am on a machining forum with lots of USA members so I have some idea on prices. $600 doesn't sound outrageous. I don't think most non-machinists realise how long some things take, especially when you include the setup time.

WRT the keyway in Sched 80 pipe, I agree, I wouldn't do it. I would have cut a key into a solid bar section, turned it down for a slip fit in the pipe and welded it in place. Through-bolting something is a weaker method but probably adequate. You do have the chance of the bolt holes wearing oval over time and slop developing. Putting in bolts or screws bearing into dimples in the pipe is simply asking for trouble, there is no question that this is going to wallow out and fail, the only thing in doubt is how long it is going to take.

I don't get it anyway. The boat has cost many $$$$, the steering gear is a mission critical subsystem where failure could result in total loss of the vessel plus risk to life and damage to 3rd party vessels. This is *not* an area to skimp on the engineering to save a few dollars! Do it right or don't sail off.

PDW

 

Only thing is... these rudders have to be able to be removed, so any hardware has to be removable.

And it's interesting, Charly. My plans specify 2" dia, 1/2" wall tubing. Not pipe.

Mine is also Skandvik like Jeff's.

 

I just went and pulled out he plans. Mine (36' day charter cat) calls for 1.9 inch od "extra strong pipe" Whatever that means. Your boat is substantially heavier, so it is probably irrelevant to your case.

 

Interesting. I never thought he changed anything from a base plan. There are so many similarities, but I guess he considers every little detail.

 

https://www.google.com/shopping/pro...kQ&ei=dYYsVemgOeffsAT1h4H4DQ&ved=0CMMBEKYrMAU

 

these go 2" http://catalog.buckalgonquin.com/it...arms/bronze-heavy-duty-tiller-arms/10ta20x14h

& you might want to double up with a shaft/stock collar,,, "glug" http://catalog.buckalgonquin.com/viewitems/rudder-collars-2/bronze-rudder-collars

Still need to sort the keyway/rotational drive..
Jeff.

 

^^^^^ Now this is why I ask you guys things. I was unfamiliar with Algonquin, having never needed to buy tiller arms before.

These will take far, far less time (or billable machine shop time) to install.

Thank you very much. This problem is solved for a somewhat reasonable cost.

 

Would be nice to see how much it ends up at with welded in head inserts, they could make the setup easy with tiller alignment if there's ackermann angle on them, not sure on your setup & geometry is tricky for this, strait & parrallel always works too.

Cats are nearly always times two

Jeff.