BYYB Forums

After my steering shaft broke off I had a replacement made from welded aluminum. Here they are for comparison I hope it stays shiny for a while.


Not cheap... At all.. But I don't think I'll have to worry about this breaking again.

Holy heavy duty batman! hock: heh if you fall on that your more like to starting breaking stuff in your own body rather than your boat!

if that don't work, you might as well just give up

Keith

Hey that looks like the axle shafts we throw away at work.
hmmmm thanks for the idea David, they are made of steel that should work.

Brian.

Where did the other one break? Haven't built mine yet...looking to avoid headaches.

Jeff:

The wood mounting plate which attaches to the shaft broke when I fell on it. It came loose every second sail. I would take the screws out, re-glue it and pray we didn't fall on it the next time I went out. But eventually I fell on it.

I like the quick release pipe bracket photos which another user posted in the sailing stories forum. Here is a link....

http://byyb.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1300

Yikes. I now know what you mean. I'm not sure how I am doing mine yet, but I will keep this all in mind. I'm actually considering using a bought steering wheel with a brass cog and will likely have the shaft going through the cog. If I end up just attaching the wheel as you did, I will likely go with doll rods and gorilla glue...(maybe). So everyone is real curious...how "expensive" was your fabrication? I'm going to take a wild guess and say over $200, probably close to $300?

Fabrication was $120 and I had it done by a company who does ornamental welding. The guy didn't want to do it but I told him I would give him $100 plus materials. So if you have the ability to weld aluminum, you can get away with this for $20.

I wanted aluminum because it doesn't rust and I sail in the salt water.

I made mine out of galvanized pipe for cheap(ish) $$

There are pictures posted on the other thread http://byyb.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1300

One thing that I did on it that's different than plan as well is to make the "drum" portion larger so that less turning on the wheel is required.

I actually based this on Stevenson plans for the steering wheel on their pedal cars.