Okay… having very few boards under my belt, I have a retro fish shape that my friend really likes. He would like me to make him the same board, but since he is a lot shorter and lighter than myself he wants the same board but about 9 inches shorter in length. Now as I am going to resize the template I made, I realize I can’t just adjust the length, but all the other dims are going to have to fall in place as well. So what is the best way, or rule of thumb to accurately resize a template? Hope I phrased this question well enough to make some sense. Thanks 
Tyson
I wouldn’t do this, but…
If you want to scale the whole thing down, just figure out what percent 9 inches is of your board, and that will be the percent smaller his board will be. Let’s say your board is 72 inches (6 foot). 9 inches divided by 72 inches equals 12.5 percent. His board would be 12.5 percent smaller. So his board would be 5’3"…wich is 12.5 percent smaller than 6 foot. So if your width is 20 inches, .125 times 20 inches is 2.5… and 20 inches minues 2.5inches is 16.5 inches… his width would be 16.5 inches (or 12.5 percent smaller than 20 inches).
The problem with that is, I don’t think you want to scale everything down the same. You might want a 5’3" instead of 6’0", but at 16.5 inches wide, it won’t ride the same. If you just want it shorter, you might want to make it wider… say, 21 or 21.5 wide… to make up the volume you lost in length.
20-2.5=17.5
But as NJ says, this isn’t wide enough.
You might scale for every x inches you take off, decrease width by y (with x being greater than y)
Maybe something like for every 2 inches in length, decrease width by .5 inches
For example:
6’0 x 21
5’10 x 20.5
5’8 x 20
Here’s my summary notes from old thread on this. Most of it comes from Greg Loher
Quote:
Rockers and thickness are scaled straight scale i.e. (proportional). Take any measurement from the original, divide by the length (in inches), then multiply by the new length for the new measurements.
Center width is scaled 1/8 inch, plus or minus, in width for every inch of length. This keeps rail to rail transition similar up and down the scale. Rail to rail is the constant that must be maintained in any design.
Nose and tail measurements actually don’t change much because the 1’ measurement actually moves in relation to different lengths.