Mainsheet Wooden Blocks

The space heaters in my garage could not keep up with the cold January weather. I could not the finish painting, and I decided to turn my attention to making some mainsheet wooden blocks.

While I had made wooden rope strop blocks before, this time I decided to use some bronze I had for the sheave support. The idea was to support the bronze pin for the sheave on bronze half-oval tangs, which would take the load and would not undergo any stress. The wooden casing would simply protect the sheave and keep ropes from fouling.

Overall dimensions would be 2 1/2″ H x 1 1/2″ W x 1 1/2″ D. The cheeks are made of cherry and the spacers of white oak. I used 1/2″ half-oval bronze for the tangs and a 1/4″ bronze rod for the pivot. The sheave was 1″ x 1/2″ Tufnol. I dimensioned the blocks to accommodate up to 3/8″ rope.

Construction was simple. I made cherry and oak blanks, routed the oak spacers to accept the half oval tangs and glued the blanks together with the tangs in place. Then I drilled the pivot pin hole though the assembled composite – wood and tangs. I shaped them with the band saw, and rounded the corners with a router and sanded them smooth.

I sealed the inner faces of the wood with one coat of liquid epoxy and then put several coats of varnish on the inside. Then the pivot pin went in with the sheave and, as stoppers for the pin, I plugged the outer holes with oak dowels. Ten coats of vanish on the outside faces came last.