Tanzer 16 -- New Tiller (the second one)

Tanzer 16 -- New Tiller (the second one)  --  October 22, 2015  --  The boat came to us 2 1/2 years ago with a cracked tiller, and I made a new one that was pretty much an exact copy of the old, cracked piece of teak.  That design left something to be desired.  It rubbed on the after deck, and it was difficult to attach a hiking stick.  So instead of sticking to the hull repair and painting like I should have, a new tiller came out of the shop.  It pretty much matches the original design  in the Tanzer plans, but it's three inches longer--hopefully forcing me to put more of my weight forward on upwind legs.

Luckily our local Home Depot now carries mahogany.  After spending weeks looking through the Habitat Restore, no mahogany came in so I plunked down fifty bucks for a board.

Started with an oversize template on cardboard and cut
the matching pieces out with a band saw.

Then they were glued back to back so the slight warp
would cancel itself out.  Once they were glued with 10
clamps I used the table saw jointer, hand plane etc to
achieve a taper and fit into the rudder socket.

Old and new side-by-side.  Now for some sanding and
marine varnish.

I have cut out the broken part of the seat.  In the next post we will look at the construction details and the manufacturing screw-up that led to the seat crack.