Rudder Tiller

[Don Maurer]

I'll be building the rudder and tiller for my boat this weekend. My question is, how should the tiller be cut? Looking from the top, should it be plain sawn or vertical grain?

[Buddy Sharpton]

Looking from the top, edge sawn.

[Bob Cleek]

Two schools of thought, I guess. I think baseball bats... the label faces up so the bat won't break when you connect. The force on your tiller will be athwartship (sideways), so the grain should run athwartship as well. If the grain runs up and down, it's more likely to split. On the other hand, with the grain running that way, you risk a weak spot if the tiller has a lot of sweep to it... which usually is greatest at the rudder end, and hence, the point of greatest stress! What to do? Well, in the old days, you found a nice sweep out of which you could fashion a tiller with the grain following its shape. Or, you run the grain up and down and hope for the best, which in good solid tight grained stock is a far better compromise because you are going to avoid that weak spot where the grain runs short across the sweep. But, these days you've got better living through chemistry: lamination is the common solution.

[ 05-23-2002, 11:55 AM: Message edited by: Bob Cleek ]