The two-part cringling fid

[Vince Brennan]

Some years back an enterprising Forumite posted a pic of the cringling fid(s) they made, a copy of which is hereby appended:


http://www.frayedknotarts.com/images/Sailmaking/CringlingFid.jpg

Suspecting the usual suspects, I wonder if the perpetrator thereof
would grace me with communication on the finer points of making
some (i.e. a rough idea as to how to bleedin' do 'er up) as a visitor
to my website saw same and now pestereth yours truly therefor.

Denks choo berry munch.

[paladin]

I made mine from a couple of old bronze keelbolts.....I could draw them up if your interested......

[Vince Brennan]

Denks choo, Eye wood lub to hab dat!

[Todd Bradshaw]

Guilty as charged. Not much to it really. I turned them freehand on a small lathe one afternoon from scrap wood. I have a bunch of 1" Delrin rod, which would make really durable fids, and thought about turning them out of that, but wood just seemed friendlier and it does the job. I used a crude caliper to check the thimbles and the diameters of the work in progress and used the drill press to get the holes in the bases straight. Once you get the shaft the right diameter to fit inside the thimble and the hole in the base block, the rest is just a bit of tapering. The small dark rings near the ends are thread wrapping in a small groove, hopefully to prevent splitting (it works on bagpipe drones, so I figured what the heck). The most critical part is to make sure the outside diameters of both parts of the fid are the same as the outside diameter of the thimble where they all come together, so that the whole thing slides smoothly into the cringle.

For a work surface, I use a soft cedar block with a hole bored in it that's about that same diameter. On sails, the rope cringle is just a woven loop of line, made from a single strand that's been unlayed from a hunk of 3-strand line. It's anchored to a couple of reinforced holes in the sail. I Lay the cringle on the board over the hole, load the thimble into the fid, turn the fid point-side-down and tap the butt end with a mallet until the thimble pops into the cringle. Then remove the fid and you're good to go. If it's a good cringle, you should have to hit it pretty hard in order to drive the fid all the way down to the thimble, as you want a very tight fit. The corner on the left has a cringle. This is a really small one, so the anchor holes are a group of small #000 spur grommets, just a bit larger than shoe-lace grommets. On a bigger one, the anchor holes would be small sewn rings.

http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/corner-types.jpg

[Vince Brennan]

Yer a prince!