PEDESTAL

The steering pedestal has been stripped of hardware and sanded down in preparation for painting. Before painting, however, I wanted to check its posture on its base in the cockpit. (You can review some of the work on making the base HERE.)

After centering it on its base, I needed to be sure the wheel shaft was alighted nearly parallel to the centerline of the boat. I did this by ensuring that the installed wheel was nearly perpendicular to the centerline of the boat:

Next, I drilled holes for the 4-inch stainless bolts I was able to find only at Fair Wind Fasteners in Newport:

Back in the workshop, I hung the pedestal from a line…

…and applied a “self etching” primer, which is specially formulated for painting metal.

Next came sanding…

…and two coats of paint. The color is “off white”, like the decks, but here I used a one-part system due to the primer being a one-part paint. (Never, ever apply two-part paint over one-part paint. The solvents in the two-part formulation will dissolve the one-part undercoat, leaving a terrible mess.)

In my last post, I mentioned that I planned to swap out the old teak compass base for a simply circular one:

Back on the boat, I got the pedestal bolted down…

…and the hardware and compass installed:

THROTTLE/SHIFTER

The throttle is a typical “morse control”, which provides both throttle and gear shifting (forward, neutral, reverse) in a single lever.

One page in the manual contains a cut-out template, whose pattern I transferred to a small piece of plywood.

I carefully cut out the pattern, creating a router template that I attached with four screws to the desired location:

I drilled a bunch of holes and jig-sawed out as much as I could before turning to the router:

Ready for installation:

The unit is firmly secured by four screws:

What you don’t see above can be seen from the cockpit locker:

Its position is aft of the storage area of the locker, so there is no concern with fouling with stored equipment. The cockpit side accepts the handle and cover. Push the red button to revv the motor without shifting into forward.