I had promised myself that I would not update this build until the main deck was glued in. However...
The decision to add a bilge pump (just in case!) has caused a dilemma (see September's post for that saga!), so I thought I would wait until Warwick before making a final decision.
Thus it came to pass that the steering wheel project was started. The white metal one seems too large, so a wooden one has been attempted:
Four pieces of teak were used for the felloes (eight being deemed too fiddly!) superglued together and stuck to a bit of broom handle with PVA for mounting in the lathe.
A 1/4" oak dowel was made and glued into the centre to form the nave. A central hole was then bored.
Not having a suitable tool to remove the waste material, I used an unsuitable one!
Eight holes were then drilled round the periphery and into the nave. This went very badly! It was not possible to keep the holes aligned going into the oak, the lignified bits being very hard and the vascular bits being soft. (I had used lignified bits from the same piece of old furniture when making the pulley blocks described earlier but the annular rings were not wide enough for the nave.)
A rummage in the box of scrap wood produced another piece with finer annular rings and after turning it down, the holes were drilled directly into this and a section inserted where the failed one had been bored out. This time it was left as a sliding fit and not glued.
Oddly enough, the new piece of oak proved unsatisfactory for the spokes, so strips from the original were cut, sliced and sanded down to 1.5mm. (A bit painstaking!)
After cutting into 17mm lengths, the inner tips were rounded, the holes in the teak made square using a piece of fretsaw blade and the spokes inserted thus:
A lberal coating of cyano was applied and the wheel sliced off in the lathe.
I wondered whether to make a new frame but thought it would be simpler to use the white metal one supplied. By the time I had finished hacking it about and coping with its softness, I realized this was a big mistake! It needed to be de-mountable and had nothing with which to fix it to the deck. The only good thing about this was that, to make a bracket, it forced me to do some milling on the lathe (for the first time - previously I have used the pillar drill!).
Next, the spindle with pulley for turning with thread from the rudder servo:
The wheel needs finishing off and a less fiddly means of attaching the thread to the servo arms but it seems to work!
Mike