Hi Michael, I´d suggest the runner enter and leave the block from (and back to) that beautifully done guiding score, as your last picture with the 4 inch block shows well. That will keep the working rope from chafing at the block´s shoulder. Parcelling and serving the block-strop, as John wrote before, is necessary for extended durability against the strain by the running rope, at least in this layout. By the way: didn´t these cutters at their time carry wooden-shelled, iron-stropped blocks with hooks or eye-bolts ? You used a modern roller-bearing at your first block, but stropped it in the old-fashioned way, with rope, splice and thimble. As far as I know blockmakers after 1875 switched to making blocks with steel strops inside, that carried the bolt of the iron sheave. They dropped oak or lignum vitae sheaves in hollowed, solid wooden blocks, and took to roller bearings, steel - or at least iron - pins and strops. The feet, the two shells and the shoulders were - and still are - made of hardwood, but the trailing load was on the metal parts : sheave, roller-bearing, bolt, inside metal-strop; and so it is in use to this day. This arrangemant gives the blocks a smooth look on the outside. And while we're at it : Its a delight to follow your thread ! Germanus