Wooden cleats

To take a short break from the boat building, I decided to make wooden cleats for this dory. 

I learned with a prior boat that top mounted cleats are a pain to car top because they get caught up in the carrier crossbars so I decided to mount them sideways under the inwales and abutting the frames for strength. I won't use any larger than 3/8" rope so the cleats could be small--no longer than 3" long with a 1" base. Some scrap white oak would work fine. I made simple template of 1/4" ply, traced them on the oak and measured each frame to the correct angle so the cleats would be parallel with the inwale. The pictures show the blank with initial cuts and holes from 3/8 inch drill for rounding sides and base. .

The next picture shows the 4 blanks just about to be separated--I did it this way so it would be easier to to handle while I used the band saw for the straight cuts and jig saw for the curves. 

I mounted the tall base in a vice and did the final shaping with a rasp tapering them down to 3/8" in each end, the refining the shape with file and finally course grit sandpaper. 

The last picture shows the mounted cleat.