Making a Wooden Steering Wheel

So the time came for me to bite the bullet and change over to remotes! After several long trips sat half twisted on my wooden seats, one hand constantly on the tiller, I’d had enough and said “that’s it I’m sitting up front from now on!”
Space is tight up front in the boat, so when it came to requirements for the steering wheel they were quite specific. After having cut 6 inches off the bottom of the dash to accommodate my lanky legs, sat in the new driving seat with a tape measure on my lap, I’d decided that a 14 inch wheel was what I needed. In my usual style I thought “ah I reckon I’ve got some bits of wood that I can use for that”, as I’m a bit of a hoarder when it comes to wood scraps!

Step 1 Moulding the spokes

I wanted to give the wheel a bit of a profile so it wasn’t completely flat, so I decided to make the spokes from laminated teak (another thing in abundance around my workshop) and set the wheel rim forward of the hub slightly. Firstly I made the form to laminate the layers using some old scrap ply.

Next I glued 7 layers of teak with west epoxy mixed with wood fibre, I used this as a glue throughout as this would need to be very strong.

The stock part for the spokes was made about 6 inches wide initially to give plenty of options for the spoke shapes later. I decided on two downward facing spokes with a slight taper on them, after googling “vintage steering wheel”.
Once I had moulded this piece I drew the spoke and hub shape on by starting with the centre, then marking 8 inches either side. This would give me the right size for a 14 inch wheel plus an inch of scrap either side to trim off after, just to make sure. I then cut the shape out with a jigsaw and drilled a quarter inch hole in the middle so I had a good centre to work from.

Step 2 Making the stock for the rim

I cut some bits of oak on the chop saw which would form a shape with 12 segments (I’m not sure what that’s technically called?). I had no idea how to work out what size the segments had to be to achieve a 14 inch diameter so it was purely trial and error, cutting bits until they started to form the right radius. At this point the pieces were about 2 inches wide to give plenty of room to play with, after all 80% of it was going to be cut away when it’s rounded off so this didn’t matter. I then clamped the whole thing up using a band clamp to make sure it fitted together, this took several attempts as each segment needs to be spot on or else some of the joints will open up in the throat and weaken the whole thing.

Next was to fit the spokes to the rim. With the rim clamped into shape (but not glued) I laid it face down on the bench and placed the spokes on top. With it all lined up I drew round the spokes and cut out the channels to set them in to the rim.


I did this again with the chop saw but this time set a depth stop to cut the majority of the wood out and finished it off with a chisel. This was cut very fine so that I had to press the spokes on to the segments in the vice, again done with strength in mind. When I was happy that all the joints were tight and flush I glued and clamped up the whole thing.

Step 3 Drawing and shaping the wheel

To get the shape of the wheel I began by drawing my 14 inch outside diameter. I did this by screwing the wheel down to the bench (using the hole I had already drilled in the middle) and drawing the outside circle using some dividers. I then drew the inside circle, coming in about an inch which was the same as the rim thickness giving me a square cross section. I then blended the inner circle into the spokes using my trusty paint pot drawing aid (responsible for many of the radiuses on the boat) to give a more “professional” shaped look to the wheel, as well as adding some strength to the area where the spokes meet the rim.


Next I cut it all down to roughly the right size, at this stage it all looked rather cumbersome and I still wasn’t sure how it would look or feel for that matter. But anyway out with the jigsaw and I began cutting it to shape, I did this just outside the lines with the plan to use the belt sander to slowly work down to the line afterwards, and take out any slip ups on the way. Now it was starting to resemble a wheel at last!

Step 4 Banding and the hub

I was thinking of ways to increase the strength of the wheel rim with metal and landed on the idea of running a band around the outer edge of it. This was going to be the easiest as I could form it round the wheel and then screw it on afterwards. I decided to set it into the wheel a bit so it didn’t protrude too much, so I cut a channel round the outside for the band to sit in; it was about 3mm thick brass so I wanted to set it in at least 2mm. I set the table saw so that 2mm of the blade was protruding and clamped two fences onto the saw bed to keep the wheel in the right place (side to side), then turned the wheel round a few times until I had an even depth channel all the way round the outside. I had to do this about 3 times in total, moving the fences each time to get a channel the right width for the brass strip. Eventually it was somewhere close and with a small bit of tidying up with a chisel it was ready.
Next I did a mock fitting of the band, clamping it in place with small g-clamps and bending it to fit the wheel. I also took this opportunity to mark the screw positions to hold it on, two per segment which coincidently were very easy to mark evenly all the way round because of the segments in the wooden part. Once they were all drilled I removed the band until the end.


I also needed a hub for the wheel to match the taper on my cable steering system. I had an old ships type wheel that my dad had given me which would become the donor. It was chrome plated brass so easily modified, I clamped it in the centre of the wheel and marked six screw positions by going diagonally between the segments on the wheel to mount it in the centre. Also with a quick sand I took it back to a brass finish… Many will cringe at that I know but it had to match the boat!

Step 5 The finishing touches

Then it all had a final shape, I put a small radius round all edges of the wheel to make it feel nicer in the hand. I did this with a router held upside down in a vice (ok a little dodgy I know), with a small radius guide bearing bit and ran the wheel through slowly. Next was a quick finish up and shape by hand with some 80 grit paper and a check to make sure it was a nice feel. Then came the varnish, I used Le Tonkinois, six coats in total with a quick rub down in between.


Lastly was the banding re-fit, I screwed it back on this time bedding it down with CT1 to add a bit of strength and stop any nasties getting under the brass.


When all was dry it had a quick going over with some brasso and it was ready to fit, thank god no more aching shoulders now I can relax up front. Best of all the only thing I had to buy for the wheel was some brass strip which was about £8… bargain wheel!

Marking Uniform Curves

Having recently added steering and remotes to the boat I found I first needed to gain a bit more leg room at the front. I hadn’t sat up there much before what with steering from the tiller and hadn’t realised how tight it was.

To do this I needed to loose about 6 inches off the bottom of the dash height either side. The dash is made of 18mm marine ply veneered with teak and so is relatively easy to just cut down, I added a bit of a curve to it in the centre to give a bit more shape and to leave some dash space available for the future should I want to mount a spedometer or possibly some other gauges.

I thought this was a good example of marking out curved lines to make them flow nicely and thought it could be quite a handy tip!

Here is a before and after shot of the dash showing the difference in space.

I began by marking the key points along the dash, I.e. where I wanted to loose the most material from (leg areas) and where I wanted the curves to start and finish. Next I put a panel pin in each of these key areas so I could bend a thin piece of wood between the pins to form a uniform curve.

Doing it this way meant I could jiggle it around and get a good feel for how it was going to look before doing anything major like taking a saw to it. When I was happy with the result I marked along the batten line with a pencil to give me the shape. I then removed the pins and was left with a nice uniform curve marked out ready to cut.


I then cut out the marked shape with a jigsaw. I finished the cut edge of the ply with a small strip of teak veneer to match the dash face.

Next… was to install the throttle and steering, including making the wheel.

Finishing the Decks

Just a quick update on deck progress, I had been backward and forward a lot with this one over the winter months (the ones when my workshop wasn’t completely frozen that is). As in my blog in October I started sheathing the decks with epoxy and plain weave glass, I soon decided however that this was going to compromise the look of the decks too much as is seemed to take away the natural look of the wood. Whilst the glass was almost completely clear there were areas where you could catch a bit of the weave especially in certain lights and I feared this would only get worse. I usually find that as you build the gloss levels you can unearth all sorts of horrors that didn’t previously seem to be there and so … It all had to come off :s

Out came the heat gun and scraper and I decided to strip it back, nearly to bare wood and start again.
The final verdict finish consisted of two coats of West System Epoxy followed by 5 coats of Jotun AS Clear, I flatted the epoxy off before applying the AS Clear.

Here was the final result anyway, all 5 coats of AS clear were sprayed and the final coat was flatted and polished.

Thanks for reading, I’ve been making some more additions to the boat recently including making a wooden steering wheel so hopefully I’ll be posting some more soon.

Epoxy Sheathing Plywood Decks

I’m going to be sheathing the decks and bilges with glass and epoxy for a bit more durability. This is a job that I should have done last year when I built the boat but I scrimped on cost a little and didn’t bother :s

The current deck consists of 6mm Robbins Elite Marine Ply varnished with Jotun Hardtop AS Clear, which is a two pack polyurethane clear coat. I was pretty happy with the results and will probably use this again over the epoxy, originally it had about 6 rollered coats the final one of which was flatted and polished.

This was the result first time around.

After a season of use however the grain is beginning to show through and there are the usual bumps and scrapes along the edges as well that need repairing, hopefully the epoxy and glass will provide much more durability than the existing finish.

The Process
The first stage was to remove all the fittings which proved quite a task as they were all bedded down with marine sealant. Also the windscreen had to be removed before the deck could be prepped. I lightly sanded the existing finish with an 80 grit disc on a DA sander to key it and wiped down the whole surface with acetone to remove any dust and dirt. Next I laid out and cut to shape the glass cloth (135gsm plain weave) and applied the first layer of resin by pouring it on and working it in with a spreader. I’m using West System 105/205 (fast) resin because its quite cold in my workshop and the fast resin is better suited to lower temperatures. I then applied another coat of resin to fill the weave and some of the low spots, I will do another coat of resin before I flat it off and start the varnish but heres a stop motion video up to this stage to show how I’ve done it.

Thanks for reading, I’ll post another blog showing the final finishing stages up to polishing when it’s done.