One of the next chores on the list was to break down, varnish, and grease the wooden sheaves on the running rigging. Sheaves are the pulleys that help manage the sheets (ropes running from the sails to wenches). For a classic look many boat owners buy the wooden sheaves; pulleys that have been encased in teak, or another hardwood. When these wooden sheaves are varnished they are stunning.
Once I brought them home yesterday I had a hell of a time figuring out how to break them down or even if you could. It literally took me about 10 hours of research on the net to find a wooden boat site that even talked about how to service them.
The basic components of them are the wooden block, pulley with bearings, two cap plates, a stainless steel loop, an axle, and four wood screws.
To break them down first remove the wood screws from the cap plates on both sides. These cap plates are threaded on the axle. To remove them I used needle nose pilers inserted into the holes for the screws to unscrew the cap plate on one side. Once the cap plate on one side was removed I used a hammer and screw driver to tap out the axle. The pulley was then extracted from the inside. Above you see all the components.
The bearing and the axle were encrusted in salty grease, which I cleaned. Then sanded the wooden blocks, removing all the gray. I washed the wood block in soap in water to remove all the dirt. Then began varnishing the block. Each block requires 7 coats of varnish to have a lasting hard shell. Once the varnish is dried I reassembled the first one, the work paid off; the sheave is functional and stunning to look at.
No comments:
Post a Comment