teak piece around rudder post

[John G.]

Has anyone replaced the piece of teak on the cockpit sole that is around the rudder post? My main concern is the hole for the post as it is cut on quite a bias. I have a plan but would like to have some input if you tackled this project. My boat is a 25D and the piece of teak is an oval that measures 7" x 12" x about 3/4". The piece of wood cost $40.00 so I'd rather not buy another one and have another piece of scrap to make bungs.
Thanks John G.

[Steve Laume]

I would cut the angle on a couple of pieces of scrap pine and temporarily fasten them to the teak piece. One on the bottom and one on the top. This will give you the proper angle for the drill when sitting flat on the drill press. The top piece will give the bit a level area to enter the work. This is something you want to use a Fostner bit on so you get a nice clean hole.

To fasten face plate to work pieces on the lathe I often use the same sort of technique. A scrap piece of pine glued to the work piece. I use carpenters glue on both surfaces with a single sheet of newspaper in between. Once I am done turning a sharp chisel is inserted between the two pieces and given a light tap. This breaks the bond at the paper and then it is sanded off. This may be over kill for what you need to do but would work well.

I would make a trail piece with pine before using teak and then you could re use the pine wedges, Steve.

[jbenagh]

I did essentially what Steve recommended on my CD25. I picked up the angle with a bevel gauge (you can use two pieces from one hacksaw blade). The piece of teak was darn near donated by Boulter plywood -- I offered to pay but it came out of the scrap pile at a nice discount I did borrow a drill press for the hole and used a spade bit (hold the workpiece very tight as the bit wll try to toss the workpiece and use a.new or sharp spade bit.
I then filled in a lot of space with 5200, felt bad about it, but then noticed it was a lot better than the factory fit of the old piece. And teh varnish was a lot better than anytime I owned the boat.

Jeff

[Steve Laume]

Jeff, if you ever have a similar project, buy a set of Fostner bits. You will be amazed at how nicely they work, both ease of use and the finished hole. I use spade bits for a lot of things but if you want a nice clean hole the Fostners are hard to beat. They also leave you with a flat bottomed hole if you don't drill all the way through, Steve.

[jbenagh]

Steve, I would have but my set didn't go large enough.

I should mention that the problem I had picking up the angle is that the sole was not completely level in that area so I picked up one angle but not the angle the piece made when it rested on its entire size. I had to tweak a few spots with a rasp and ended up with a few spots with a bit more than a 1/16 inch gap. It might have been better to make a template of the correct outside dimension with an oversized hole, then pick up the angle. Also, the rudder post was not exactly square athwartships, maybe a few degrees off which was enough to make some gap.

Jeff

[John Stone]

Hi John,
I am not sure if you are asking about the same thing. I built a new rudder post deck plate for my CD 36 which I converted from wheel to tiller. Here is a link to how I approached it. I did not use teak but the same approach would work. After clicking on the link, scroll down to the 14 Sept 2010 entry and the basic info, with some pictures, is there. If you want more info send me a PM.

Good luck.

http://www.farreachvoyages.com/dailylog ... ept10.html

[Shinok]

Your post inspired me to inspect mine, good thing I did.

Ours is in bad shape too. I contemplated replacing it, but I couldn't get the tiller attachment point on the rudder post to come off, so I sanded the teak down to improve it's appearance. The worst part is that I discovered there were only 2 of 4 screws installed in the plate. Even worse than that, the PO filled the other holes with silicon and bedded it with the same material. EVEN WORSE, it was leaking, a lot apparently and since screws were used, the water just seeped into the core with no way out. You can see the delamination from under the cockpit sole, fortunately it's a pretty small area, but I'm gonna have to cut it out and repair it :/

The cockpit sole seems to have the largest concentration of standing water of anywhere on the boat, so I took a leap and drilled out the holes and filled them with thickened epoxy. I also noted a bit of gelcoat cracking, so I dug that out and basically covered the area with epoxy. I'm not sure if this was the right approach, but I got tired of it leaking and my first attempt at fixing the leaks failed miserably. I reapplied the teak piece with adhesive and caulked around the outside. At least it won't leak anymore...