[Public-List] Tiller Bronze bracket wobble

[Stephen Gwyn via Public-List]

Hi,

I've tried and contemplated a large number of methods to get rid
of this wobble. I'd like to sumarize the results. I'm sure they
have technical names, but in this, I'm going to call the knob that
goes on the end of the rudder post the "knob" and the H-shaped part
that attaches to the tiller the "H-bracket"


Works temporarily:
Washers between the H-bracket and the knob. I tried plastic
washers: they last 2 hours. I tried stainless steel washers: they
wear into the bronze after a few months. I tried 20 mil bits of
copper foil. The lasted longer then the plastic washers, but
still only a month or so, and at the end of their lives the
strips were razor thin and bit my ankles. But cheap.

I didn't try but don't think will work:
Drilling the hole that forms the hinge between the H-bracket and
the knob one size larger and either using a sleeve or a one size
larger bolt. At least on my unit, the ends of the H are would be
quite thin after taking out another 1/16-inch of metal. And
getting those 4 holes (both arms of the the H and both side of
the knob) exactly round and lined up is tricky. More importantly,
at the end you're now putting all the twisting load on the bolt
and the holes. What you want is the arms of the H bracket bearing
on the sides of the knob. If you can achieve that, then the bolt
is just there for convenience. You could imagine for example just
twisting the knob (and therefore the rudder) with a wrench on the
knob.  It would of course fall off when you weren't holding it,
so you do need some sort of bolt, but the point is the load isn't
on the bolt.

Expensive failure:
Buy a new tiller head from Edson marine. I've complained about
this earlier but I'm going to complain again.
- Terrible design: the load is all on the bolt.
- Terrible execution: It wobbles out of the box, and the holes aren't
   drilled straight.

Didn't try: Discard the H-bracket. Get an angle grinder, a small
piece of glass, some wet-dry sandpaper and a drill press and a
set of taps. Buy some 3/16-inch 316 series stainless steel angle
and some ebony. Use the angle grinder to machine the sides of
knob fairly straight and flat. Put wet-dry sand paper on the
piece of glasses to sand the knob perfectly flat. Fabricate a new
H-bracket from the stainless steel angle using the angle-grinder
and the drill press. Hold the bits together using the screws
thread into holes that you've tapped using. It will look very
industrial with the horizontal bits of the L of the angle
sticking out (adding strength, but looking awful). Use the ebony
as a non-structural cover sitting on top of the steel
angle. Yeah, ebony is expensive but it will still be cheaper than
an Edson tiller head. Heck, even if you have to but a drill press
it will be cheaper. I didn't do this because I couldn't work out
the exact design. The wooden tiller and the knob are slightly
different widths. Drilling holes in stainless is no fun, even
with a drill press and cobalt bits. And tapping holes in
stainless is even harder. Also, I'm not sure how weather
resistant ebony is, so I would have to downgrade to teak.

Expensive success:
Take it to good machine shop. Have them weld more bronze on to
the knob and the H-bracket to replace the bronze that wore off,
then machine it back until it's a tight fit. This cost me the
same as the new tiller head from Edson, but on the other hand
it's done right. There is no play whatsover. The load is all on the
arms of the H against the sides of the knob.
http://astrowww.phys.uvic.ca/~gwyn/pers/sailing/IMG_20170313_160315125.jpg

SG