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I'm having a heck of a time finding springs that I can use to make the deck blocks for the jib sheet and main sheet stand erect.  I've considered giving them a dose of viagra, but that only works for a few hours and I remember reading that it will hurt your vision ( the priests were right all along - you WILL go blind  )

What have others done to have their blocks "stand at attention" - or does it really matter?

http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/sto...assNum=412



I'm sure Jamestown will have these springs too.

A low buck approach is to cut off a short section of vinyl tubing and place it between the block hold down and the body of the block.

I just bought blocks pre sprung (is that a real word?) 

Well, pre-sprung is a word.

I have often wondered why some words are spelled like pre-sprung, and others are spelled presprung.  I am guessing that it is a usage thing. Another 50 years of use, and pre-sprung will probably be shortened to presprung.  I am amazed at how this processes is accelerating, most likely due to the interconnectedness of all things on the internet. My favorite example is prepone.  Two decades ago I wrote a job scheduler for a computer system which included such concepts as “run this on the last Friday of the month”.  The problem was what to do with it if the last Friday of the month was a holiday.  I figured you could either skip it all together, postpone it to Monday, or prepone it to Thursday.  Eveybody asked “Is prepone a word?”  (Today google returns +138,000 hits for prepone.) Well, I guess they don’t teach Latin anymore.  Pone = to place, post = after, pre = before,  so postpone is to place after, prepone would be to place before.  So I started looking into this and I discovered that languages in general are full of words like postpone that describe doing something later than intended … to defer, delay, put-off, procrastinate, hold up, setback, etc. But antonyms to doing something later than intended are pretty much non existent.  It seams that Time flows only in one direction and nobody wants to swim upstream.  I would therefore submit that there exists a “cosmic law of laziness” where things are much, much, more likely to be postponed than preponed.  So the fact that my Weekender still has not been finished three years after laying the keel is simply the observance of the way things are in the universe.  At least, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Cheers,
Tom

(05-19-2009, 02:24 PM)Paul Riccelli PE,NA link Wrote:A low buck approach is to cut off a short section of vinyl tubing and place it between the block hold down and the body of the block.

A piece of tubing it shall be then.  Thanks.

After much searching and thinking, I've finally added springs to the blocks for the jib sheet and main sheet.  My main problem was finding large enough of compression springs.  I finally found them a few weeks ago at Brafasco (an industrial fastener and fittings store).  They had 1" inside diameter X 6" springs.  I then made a cap for the spring using a pipe cap with a slot cut into it.  Without the cap, the spring would interfere with the line running through the block.  It was "complex" to compress the spring before screwing in the eyebolt but everything seems to fit OK.  To keep the deck from getting messed up, I put an extra large washer on the bottom hoping that friction will hold the spring in place on top of it.

The jib sheet now runs quite well but I'm concerned about the mainsheet.  The block now is fixed pointing fore and aft.  I'm concerned that it will bind when the boom is out.

I know most everyone else bought commercial blocks for these fittings - do you have the same issue?

Tom, I think you are on to something there. After seven years of trying to prepone the yearly maintenance on my boat's brightwork, it has instead been postponed every time.

In keeping with my usual support of hijacking threads I will say that I also believe Tom is correct.  My 9 year old daughter is prone (sorry prone is as close to pone as I could get) to ask things like "Daddy is time travel real?".  In answer to such questions I rely on memory, cognative examination and resources.  In the case of time travel we came to the conclusion that traveling backwards in time has never been nor will ever be accomplished.  That premise was arrived at based on the idea that if it ever was or will be discovered someone, at sometime, would travel backwards in time and prevent the horrible tragedies that have occured.  Yes I know the time paradox theories maintain a time traveler would have to make sure they didn't disturb the flow of time but I also know human nature and sometime, somewhere, somehow, someone would prevent a relative or admired person or out of compassion even total strangers from getting on a plane that was to crash or some other event and alter history.  Once that happened it would either cascade forward, altering all history, or have no effect other then the life savings.  If the former was true then history would noticably change but the victims would not die. If the later was true and there were no ill effects the victims would still not die.  Either way the the practice would become widespread and there would be no more such disasters.  This would happen before our time and in our time because if traveling back in time were to ever become possible then it would be currently possible because someone from the future could and would travel to now.  We guessed the best argument, that backwards time travel will never exist, is that currently there are and have been disasters so it is currently not possible and it would be possible now if it were to ever happen.  So we agree with Tom.  Time only travels in one direction.

I only bring this to your attention so you can comptemplate it, and like mysteries of the universe, while you sand.  Yes paradox's are just that... things to consider while sanding, and sanding, and sanding and sanding...

That makes sense Terry, but consider, if you invented time travel NOW, say, would your first priority be to travel back in time to Pompeii, for example, and warn them of the impending Volcano? I'm going to say that I don't give a darn about Pompeii at this point, I guess I would probably try to prevent 9/11, or World War 2 or something, but it wouldn't even occur to me to travel back to Pompeii. So if time travel is to be invented say 2000 years from now, who in that time period is ever really going to care about our old tragedies? I bet no-one. And think of the repercussions of saving even ONE person from two thousand years ago!

Being a life long student of human behavoir I would bet the farm that someone at sometime would do just that.  A historian enthralled with Julius Ceasar, a religous person following their beliefs, someone.  With time travel priority wouldn't matter because you could go to the times in any order and still get there in time to prevent the event.  I think I can settle the argument, that someone would care about one insignificant event or person, in just one word... Google.  Enter anything you can think of and if you don't get at least one hit I will be amazed.

The point is really mute though.  If you had the ability to prevent the deaths of thousands would you do it?  If you could prevent the death of hundreds?  How about one stranger walking down the street?  I would guess you and almost every other human alive would do something to save someone if they could.  Thats the point.  If you allowed the thousands that died at Pompeii to die when in an instant you could have saved them how would you feel about it?  Keep in mind with time travel you could pop back to that time, warn them, even spend days helping them relocate and then return to the exact instant in time that you left when you went to help them.  To do nothing is a choice but if doing nothing when you are able to do something allows someone to die are you not part of the cause of that persons death?  There have been and still are laws that mandate this as well as civil cases that hold it to be so.  I personally don't give those as much weight as I do my belief in human nature.  The very existence of this forum and thousands of others like it are testimonials to that concept.  Look at the time you and others have spent and the advice you have given in an effort to help an anonomous boat builder.

The idea of time travel is intriging though.  You could lead a double, triple or whatever number of lives you wanted if you were good at organizing and could get by on little sleep.  You have your llife here.  Then you pop to the 17th century and have a life there then the future.  To others you would exist in all those timelines at the same instant by just going to that instant of time in each.  They might eventually notice you aging more rapidly then they do, since you would be aging at 3 times their rates, but since they would never guess time travel was the cause you could still pull it off.  Boggles my mind.   It's probaly just as well that time travel is not possible and never will be.  I will be heading out to sand in a bit and now have more mind candy to cognate on while doing so.  Thanks