Home made cleats

[Guest Anonymous]

Hi All

I'm looking into carving my own cleats :? and was wondering if you knowledgable folk could let me know if I can use the 'butler' cleat as both a 'standard' cleat as well as a jam cleat?

I have read that it was normally used on small craft as a standard cleat, but it seems similar in shape to the jam cleats I've read about.

Your responses will of course be as always invaluable 8)

Andrew

[Andrew]

Sorry :oops: , I should have included this picture...

[attachment over 4 years old deleted by admin]

[Frank Hagan]

Yep, it can be used as a jam cleat too.

You have to be careful with it and practice un-jamming. With the modern cam cleats, yanking on it in a panic will usually pull it up enough to release it. With other style jam cleats, you have to know how to un-jam them!

[cs]

http://a0.cpimg.com/image/B2/89/12908210-6ba1-02000155-.jpg' alt='12908210-6ba1-02000155-.jpg'>

Chad

[Sailor3356]

Chad, you cleat looks great. I take it that its made out of oak?

[Johannah]

Looks like mahogany to me, but I'm always ready to be surprised.

[cs]

Yes it is mahogany. When putting the epoxy to it it turned a reddish brown. The photo here does not show the redness as much and this is un-varnished. I don't have any photos of a varnished one.

Chad

[Andrew]

Very nice Chad

I'm just starting my first jam cleat in Meranti (mahogany), what knives did you use?

I'm stuck with a crappy 'hobby' knife 'till pay day comes round!

[Phil Gowans]

I "carved" mine out of mahogany with a rotary sanding drum on a hand drill. I made both standard cleats and jam cleats as shown.

[Andrew]

Phil

I have seen your cleats on your site and that was one of the main drivers for me doing mine (and its cheap!).

PS I like your 'new' steering clutch - do you have a spare one I could have?

[Barry Pyeatt]

Nicely executed Chad. That should be a great addition to your "Yacht".

How about some measurements?

[cs]

I had a templete that I got from Mike Field and I used the copy machine to scale it up and down to get the size I needed. As far as tools I used a drill to bore out the round parts and than rough cut it on the band saw. After that I used a cheap Stanley rasp to form it up. I then used a dremall moto tool with a sanding drum to do some of the final shaping and than cleaned it up with some sandpaper. From start to finish it takes about an hour to make one. A good way to spend a rainy afternoon.

Chad

[Guest]

Phil, if you have any other shots of your weather board, as I call it, that shows up in your cabin shot, tell me more about how you either laminated it, or steamed it into place, to the cabin, please. Nice work on the rest of it.

[Phil Gowans]

I did the "splash coamings" as per the Stevensons suggested techniques. They did not provide any dimensions. They were cut from one flat 4-quarter board of mahogany with a band saw set for the angle of the seat back. These were individually stacked up to get the proper shape. After laminating each piece was sanded with a belt sander to fit the boat.

This sounds fairly straight forward, however, as many can attest, there are al lot of pitfalls here. We're talking a piece that varies its curvature in 2 dimensions. I think I was one of the lucky ones that got mine done without having to redo them. I did cheat and built a set out of Styrofoam cut with a knife. This gave me a better idea of what could go wrong.

Here's a few things that I did that I think helped. I made a pattern for the base of the 1st piece right from the boat on paper. This I cut on the band saw. The top of that piece made a pattern for the next piece. Which was cut out and so forth. Since each piece is larger than the preceding they mostly came from the board in succeeding pieces next to prior one. I tried to make them wider and a little longer than I really wanted them to be, figuring that I would have to sand them to shape anyway.

My coamings fit the boat very nicely, but if you look at the photo below, you will notice that I built up the boat to match the coamings with thickened epoxy. They really make a comfortable place to sit.