Wheel cover or not?

[wrwakefield]

Originally Posted by forestguardian

What are the advantages of a suede wheel-cover? What is the upside of a shiny chrome wheel without a cover? Our last boat (1984-7) had a cover and we sailed 10,000 miles in cold and wet and hot and dry.

New (to us) 1990 boat has a bare wheel. Leave it shiny or cover it? There may be lots more important upgrades before lacing on a wheel cover.
(New horseshoe, 2nd anchor, LED Tri-color, jack lines, netting, lea cloth, storm cloth, repair or replace head). Taking inventory tomorrow with surveyor.

It depends upon how much steering you do in what kind of conditions in what climate.

In cooler or wet weather a cover is nice, but good gloves do the trick too...

Given what they want for a leather wheel cover kit, I would spend the $ on stuff you need and add some climate appropriate gloves to your list of gear.

Perhaps cover the wheel sometime after you have experienced one on other boats- and like it- when you are bored at anchor...

Cheers!

Bill

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by drpaoletta

Mine came with a bare metal wheel and I found it both cold and slippery. Being a bit light in the wallet and not willing to shell out $300 (US) for the real thing, I ordered some tennis racquet wrapping stuff from Amazon. It's more comfortable, easily replaceable when it gets dirty and doesn't look half-bad. Maybe I'll get the leather one when I grow up?
- Just a thought!


http://www.amazon.com/HEAD-285088-bl...rch_detailpage

Bicycle handlebar tape would work too, but I'll just leave mine bare, since I got the autopilot, I try not to touch the wheel that often

[DDabs]

I was going to suggest that too a64, bicycle handlebar tape is great and can be replaced easily:

BROOKS ENGLAND LTD. | OTHER+BROOKS+PRODUCTS | LEATHER+BAR+TAPE

I have this stuff on my fixie and it is truly amazing. A little pricey, not sure how much you would need to do a wheel.

[a64pilot]

That is Brooks though, as in the extremely traditional Brooks leather saddle. Normal bike tape used to be cork, and I think now is a kind of dense tapered foam?

[DDabs]

Yeah I think you can get either these days, just depends where you buy

[Cheechako]

I far prefer the leather cover to bare SS. The bare SS is COLD!

[TrentePieds]

Do it the proper way and lay a cockscomb of net-twine on it :-)

TrentePieds

[boeing1]

also have teak wheel

[Jim Cate]

FWIW,

We've made leather covers for all our s/s wheels, and much prefer the feel. But no 300 dollar kits have been involved. We find a leather supplier and buy offcuts of some leather that we like the appearance of... have used several different finishes and colours, and they all have worked ok. The typical cost for such material is less than 10 bucks. I bought a 4-pin hole punch from a craft shop and make the requisite holes in the edges of the strips that I cut from our scrap leather and then lace them on using waxed sail twine and a herringbone stitch. Looks as good as the pro jobs and costs so little that replacement when it wears out is not an issue.

I have a hard time understanding how Edson et al justify their pricing...

Jim

[DDabs]

Jim, do you use one piece of leather the length of the circumference of the wheel? or do it in sections? Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

[Tayana42]

I wrapped mine in twine.

Did that 3 years ago. No sign of wear. It took hours and miles of twine. Not hard though.

S/V B'Shert

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by DDabs

Jim, do you use one piece of leather the length of the circumference of the wheel? or do it in sections? Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

I have done covers in one piece and in several pieces end stitched together... depends on what size offcuts I can find. You can always buy a single length cut to size by the vendor, but that ups the cost significantly in most cases. Our current wheel cover was made up of two lengths, others have been from as many as four... isn't a big deal unless the aesthetic impact of the joins bothers you.

As to my "newsletter"... ain't no such thing, I'm afraid. I'm much too lazy to produce one!

Jim

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Tayana42

I wrapped mine in twine. Attachment 124560

Did that 3 years ago. No sign of wear. It took hours and miles of twine. Not hard though.

S/V B'Shert

IIRC, that sort of wrapping is called coachwhipping. It is not much more time consuming than simple wrapping of the twine, and has the advantage of maintaining tightness as you go... no need to go back and milk the slack out as Livia did. Uses slightly more twine, but gives a really good gripping surface.

But I like leather better!!

Jim

[leftbrainstuff]

Metal wheel is cold and slippery.

The wheel on our liberty 458 is wood over stainless. Seems to be a good compromise of durability and comfort.

Sent from my SM-N900T using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[barnakiel]

If you are ever going to touch the wheel, you may like some form of a cover. I found that a leather cover wants a canvas cover, in port.

Or buy an AP.

b.