Dear John,
I have never had any success finding good quality, correctly shaped bronze thimbles.
They are either the wrong shape, the wrong material or just plain wrong-looking.
The Townsend foundry ones are amongst the best of the bunch bit all look a bit cartoony to me.
I have had great success with L.W Riley HD series stainless thimbles available here in Aus or via the Riley website. ww.rileyfittings.com
They understand about loads, sizes etc.
Do not be tempted to weld the throat/points of the thimble together in a vain quest to "improve" the distortion resistance of the thimble. (A bar across the eye is far better)
All you will do is make it more difficult to pass the frapping turns of the throat seizing that you will be applying after forming a larger than needed eye and then capturing the thimble with aforementioned seizing.
This allows you to replace the thimble when it wears or cracks as will inevitably happen with non-crescent section thimble material.
There are some investment cast 316 and 304 thimbles available from West Marine, I think, but they are Chinese and as such highly suspect.
I also have a problem (personal, from experience and on wire and fibre rope) with cast ss thimbles fatigueing and cracking in the crown and cutting the rope.
Regards,
Joe Henderson.
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