Earlier this year we had the opportunity to rebuild the wheel from Duen. A Norwegian fishing boat built in 1939 as a working boat. Most likely Duen's original steering was a very large tiller. At some point this wheel was found and installed on Duen. Likely this wheel that we are working on was from some other ship. The age of the wheel would be between 80-100 years old determined by the the building method and glue that they used.
This is the wheel as it's being taken apart
Building a jig to build all the new pieces was the first job. The jig and router did most of the work. The jig built all the pieces for the wheel and it was essential in keeping all the parts perfect circles. It's interesting to note that the wheel was a very accurate circle to begin with and all the parts were almost identical. It makes me think that this wheel was originally built with a jig and that would indicate that this wheel was built by a ships wheel manufacturer.
After building all the parts for the wheel we used the jig to build a mold for the two bronze rings that we had cast up. Taking in consideration that bronze shrinks we built the rings slightly oversize.
The original plan for this project was to rebuild the steering pedestal and to upgrade the cable to tiller steering to a hydraulic system.
Below is the hydraulic pump built by a Vancouver company Kobelt. The pump and the steering controls are neatly hidden in the tradition pedestal.
