PDRacer Sailboat - Frequently Asked Questions

Making Wooden Cleats
by Peter Hyndman & Michael Storer

The trick to making fittings out of wood in this way is to work out where the wood will split and put the fastenings (bolts and screws) that are used to attach the fairleads or cleat to the boat perpendicular to the cleavage plane. That's the traditional way and it makes the cleats and fairleads just as strong as the metal bolts or screws that hold them in place. The reason the radius at the bottom of the cleat is so that sometimes you just want to put the rope under the cleat to change the angle for pulling it. If the rope is 6mm and the radius is 9mm the rope will pull through nicely. However when you have taken the rope one full turn around the cleat so there are two layers of 6mm rope taking up the 9mm radius it jams very effectively. You have probably seen people use the cleats by wrapping the rope in a figure of 8 pattern, backwards and forwards. The proper way is to go round the base once so it jams then do some figure of 8s. Usually two or three. The beauty is that first full turn takes all the load which means that the figure of 8s will always be easy to undo. Centuries of development!

They aren't very hard to make though, and yes?I know plastic horn cleats can be bought from any boat shop for two or three dollars, but we're?building two boats, and we need one for each boat that would add up to SIX DOLLARS, so we really should build our own. Here are pictures of rough cleats I made in twenty minutes, using a tablesaw, drill press and wood rasp.

Cleats are easy and fun to make using hand tools one at a time, but this time I just wanted to churn them out, so shaped a cleat-shaped strip and cut it into pieces once it was crudely shaped.

1) Take any old bit of timber you can find that seems strong enough, and cut the bit off the end that looks as though it's got four cleats inside it.
2) Take your little block of wood and make a couple of angled cuts on the table saw. If you are as smart as I am, you'll hold it all securely in place with a big heavy clamp, or if you are cleverer still will make a special carrier for the piece. Even if you are really dumb, please work out how to do this safely before trying it!
3) This is where I don't look so smart... having made the cuts in the wrong side of the block, notice the grain running across what will be the horns, somewhat like building in a certain failure. We'd really like the grain to be running lengthwise and preferably vertically wouldn't we!
4) After starting again, the first four cuts made, the block is about 100mm (4") long at this stage.

5) Drill a couple of holes about 1 1/2 times the diameter of the rope intended for the cleat.
6) Nip off the bottom corner bits
7) Slice the block into cleat-sized slices, then trim off the bottom bits to the desired depth.
8) Stick them one at a time in a vice, and drag a rasp and sandpaper over them till they look something like a bought one.

9) Here's the first off the production line, with the remaining blanks, and a black plastic one for comparison.

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