Our most recently aquired C22 was in terrible shape cosmetically. The tiller handle for example. It was taken off the rudder post and stored on the sole of the cockpit. It had weathered to the point that the individual pieces of wood had separated from each other! Completely greyed and looking like junk I had resigned myself to simply buying a new one.
Dang, I wish I had taken decent before shots so you could see the change.
Since I had already decided to buy a new tiller handle, I figured I'd have at it with the old one with the idea that if it looks like crap when done, I'd toss it and say nothing! LOL!
Here is what I did:
First I need a heated environment so on came the garage heaters. Brought the tiller in to dry and warm up.
The individual pieces of wood were still held together by the lashing at the business end so I split them the best I could without dissassembly and absulutely STUFFED the pieces with slow drying epoxy from Lowes Hardware. I carefully cleand off the excess and wrapped the tiller in aluminum foil. The I took and over abundance of wire ties and wrapped the tiller tight every couple of inches going back to each tie and tightening it further whenever possible. Now I let that dry for 1 day in the garage now at 60 degrees.
Next day I cut the wire ties off, pulled the aluminum foil off ( keeps the ties from being epoxied to the wood ) and thought OMG! THAT THING IS UGLY!
Out came the orbital sander and 60 grit paper. I used the sander to remove all old finish, left over aluminum, and all excess epoxy that had ooozed out during the tie up phase.
Now I had a SOLID tiller that looked better but still had some minor separation between the pieces of wood. Hmm. Ah ha! Elmers glue! Yup!
I filled each crack with elmers glue and then preceded to sand with 200 grit paper. The sanding forced the sawdust into each crack where the glue took hold and effectively puttied up the cracks! Hey, Looks pretty good! I did however have to swap the paper out very regularly as it picked up glue! I let that dry for a day.
Next came two coats of Cetol. ( prefer it over varnish for ease of repair )
Unfortuantely my garage has dust so the Cetol looked good but was bumpy so out came the 600 grit sand paper. Rember to let the Cetal dry for 24 hours between coats. After the light sanding came a third coat of Cetol.
The final test for appearance . . . . .
Hey Honey, come look at what I did! LOL!
Now, admitedly, it is not a new looking tiller handle. Nor is it perfect. However, I will not be buying a new one!!
Tonight it should be dry enough for me to take down and take photos of and I will post here!
Here are the photos!
To see all the photos, click Ladi Di in my sig!
The tiller after rework!
The companion way boards before . . . . .
The companion way boards after!
Scott
