Round One...

A couple of weeks ago, Pops (my dad) asked me to remove the tiller handle and take it over to his house so that he could sand it down a little and see if it was worth saving.  The previous owner had allowed the teak to go grey and let the wood grain rise.  There also appeared to be a couple of dents and nicks along the sides that we were not sure if they would come out.

After getting the boat back over to Anthony's house (my friend mentioned in the previous posts), he was kind enough to take off for lunch one afternoon and remove the tiller for me to stop by and pick up.  Along with the jib sails, I took the tiller over to Pop's house.  Once in his hands, he proceeded to sit down in the backyard and go to town with some .320 grit.  It didn't take long to tart showing the beauty of the grain underneath.  After some debate about whether or not it was actually worth saving, I took the handle home to start after it with some .100 grit and eventually working back down to the finer .320 grit.

The result is pretty good, though you can see that the pits and nicks are not going to come out with some simple sanding.  I took the handle and placed my foot in the middle and grabbed on to each end in an attempt to test its strength.  Even if it is fairly ugly, there is still some life left in the old wood.  I think I am pretty much resolved to the fact that either:

(A) I am going to use this tiller handle as a spare/back-up
(B) I am going to just have to live with a banged up tiller handle

I am not really sure which yet, so I decided to run down to West Marine and pick up some teak oil to see what a little doctoring might do to make my decision for me.  While at West Marine, I went ahead and got my first round of supplies needed to patch up that hole around the keel trunk.

Left: West System 206 Slow Hardener
Middle: West System 105 Epoxy Resin
Right: West Marine Premium Gold Teak Oil
Front: 8' Sheet of Fiberglass

Come tomorrow, I will most likely get started on cutting out the hole in the keel trunk, and taking a look from the inside along the false bilge to survey how much glass is going to be needed.  My assumption is that an 8' sheet should be more than enough for the job.  We shall see...