old style mainsheet travellers

[See Level]

Slight drift:

Got a friend who sails a Tartan 34 (late 1980 boat). It has a Lewmar traveler with control lines. The blocks at the ends still work, but UV has cause the black plastic upper body to fall apart. Lewmar says they don't make replacement blocks; he would need to buy a new traveler. He's not keen on that. He doesn't race the boat, and and is not fussy about sail trim.

This is what the end blocks look like. Any ideas?

View attachment 489756

Unscrew(if possible) the block and turn it over.

 

[Bull City]

Unscrew(if possible) the block and turn it over.

It's hard to tell from the photo (which is not from friend's boat), but it is not a conventional block. The "bottom half" of the block is actually a single casting which forms the entire bottom of the end stop.

 

[Santanasailor]

It's hard to tell from the photo (which is not from friend's boat), but it is not a conventional block. The "bottom half" of the block is actually a single casting which forms the entire bottom of the end stop.

If the top unscrews which appears to be the case, constructing a new piece out of aluminum would not be hard.  If it was my repair I would try to replace the sheeves as well.  Surely replacements can be found that closely match the originals.  

 

[The Q]

Got it. Thanks. The cheek looked like aluminum to me, so I was confused.

At some point in the post war era a lot of block bits and even cam cleat jaws were made from, I believe, cotton phenolic. It didn't last forever -- tended to chip out and delaminate, IIRC -- but it worked.  It should be relatively easy to replicate that cheek using simple hand tools in phenolic. Aluminum, glass fiber (G10), and SS are also hand tool/home shoppe plausible but more challenging.

Cotton phenolic aka Tufnol blocks have a long life there are still a few around on older boats.

I've built blocks with the shell made Tufnol, and  turned the sheeve out of a hard plastic . In fact yesterday I fitted a sheeve made of acetal turned on my lathe, to a mast head block.

Turned a few spare sheeves at the same time, it's a few minutes to turn a sheeve, a lot longer to set up the lathe in the first place..

Note , The mast and block are now obsolete and the replacement class mast about £900 uses a different block.

 

[kerlandsen]

Here is my solution. Garhauer and some custom Mahogany blocks. Under the block is a pin that locks into trav to keep it in place. Inside the block matches the profile of extrusion 

 

[SloopJonB]

Cotton phenolic aka Tufnol blocks have a long life there are still a few around on older boats.

I've built blocks with the shell made Tufnol, and  turned the sheeve out of a hard plastic

For your daily dose of pedantry, Tufnol is actually linen and phenolic, not cotton.

It's one of the earliest "plastics" and they still make the fucking horrible things in - where else? - Britain.

It's the polyester leisure suit of boat hardware - ugly and horrible from day one and virtually indestructible.

 

[The Q]

Virtually indestructible? Yep that's the point..

I've used Tufnol in strips to give slippery bearing surfaces in a centreboard case, it's a very useful material in all sorts of ways, sadly my cheap source of it in rod, sheet and block form is no longer available.

While searching through the box of spares yesterday, I found a commercial Tufnol mainsheet block, I don't think they are  more ugly that any other block. It may get used on the boat refit.

These days I use and see being used Tufnol in the electronics industry much more than sailing, it's a great isolator both electrically and thermally

 

[JohnMB]

For your daily dose of pedantry, Tufnol is actually linen and phenolic, not cotton.

It's one of the earliest "plastics" and they still make the fucking horrible things in - where else? - Britain.

It's the polyester leisure suit of boat hardware - ugly and horrible from day one and virtually indestructible.

Don't agree, tufnol use linen but they also use cotton in their products. (as well as paper and glass )  The main common factor is the phenolic resin, which is mainly still a thing because of its fire properties, there are so many good reasons not to use it....

 

[Devoforedeckus]

The traveler shown in the picture also has a couple of U bolts on it.

Anyone have any ideas what these are for?

Place to hook up your sea harness to?