UncleBob said.. Looks really good, extremely well thought out, just need someone to commercialise it so that the likes of me can buy it.
FWIW, there's a link on his youtube channel to a webstore where he's selling them for about $AU122 each, presumably not including shipping. Caveat emptor.
Looks like a good idea. I love the utility of it - being able to stack them, use them as a snatch block etc
I do wonder about friction though. There must be a reason that the experienced manufacturers are putting ball bearings in their blocks. The sheave in these new blocks looks to have quite a lot of surface area in contact with the central aluminium axle (spindle?), what's that going to be like after a bit of corrosion sets in on the aluminium.
The static load test shows that they are plenty strong enough, but does the sheave still rotate nicely under load?
I love the idea of open source boat equipment though! I could get behind that, especially if we could all be 3d printing things at home (or maybe in some remote achorage where the nearest chandlery is too far away)
