I would like to make a fish but i need a template so is there away to make one without using another fish?? Because i dont have one ore know anyone who will lend me one…
Hey Noob,
I’d be glad to snail mail you a fish template or two. Let me know. Mike
howzit Noob. Mike’s offer is generous, but another option is here if you’re in a hurry
I have a template that a friend on here made me for a 6’ fish, you print out on sheets of regular printer paper and tape and cut. PM me
your email and I could send it to you.
T.
Hey
I did one last night, you can download shaping software for free. I use 3Dshaper. Took me 10 mins to figure out how to work the basic functions. It’ll let you pick all the dimentions, and then let you play with the outline and rockers. You can then print the outline on 1:1 scale. Just join the sheets together using the markers, and either transfer the template onto long thick sheet of cardboard and make a more lasting template that way, or go straight to the blank.
Try this free online software, it makes some really nice curves and outputs a table of coordinates so that you can plot your curve (but you’ll have to add the swallow tail yourself) :
http://www.atuacores.com/surmesure.php
It’s in French but it is quite self explanatory. If you need help using it, let me know.
Great thanks guys… the french one i was at last night but i could only figure out how to change the blanks… but also my email is johnmagaral@hotmail.com and i would love to get some more info.
Originalsin, I am trying to shape a 5’10" Lis Fish. Would love that 6’ template; could you send? Thanks in advance.
Hi n’shaper, correct me if I’m wrong, but sounds like you finished one or 2? If so, I am only half a dozen ahead of you, so these links posted above will likely be more valuable to you than what I have to say. I tried one of the ‘tape 7 sheets together and cut out’ and I think there is too much room for error there, but obviously if you can get a continuous printout, well there you go! I am just finishing up a fish. For what it’s worth, here’s how I’ve gone about makin’ outlines. It’s a dodgy method, but I am totally happy with the fish outline, so-so on the others…what looks good on paper is something else in 3D. I feel like good outlines are probably sacred possessions, so unless you know some decent shaper or can trace a board you want to duplicate on tar paper, might as well figger it out on yer own and start yer own sacred lines, no? Stupid or not, here it is: Take a sheet of 1/4" graph paper. I designate 2" for every 1/4" square (basically you are drawing the board 1:8 scale). Make dots at tail and nose height, center, wide pt. Make a dot AT the widest point. Make a dot at 1’ from nose and tail at whatever dimensions you are going for. Then take a bendy little ruler and with awkwardness or the help of someone else, make the ruler hit all the pts and trace the curve. Fold the paper in half on the ‘stringer’ and cut it out. Now you have a map, and you can tell intuitively whether or not it needs some tweaking (in theory…again, might look good on paper) Expand this map onto a sheet of tarpaper. Where the little one is useful is that wherever yer outline hits an intersecting quadrant or what looks like exactly halfway between one square and another on the graph paper, you can do the math multiplying accordingly and plot more points on the tar paper. Get a bendy piece of one by lumber or whatever suits you, and do the same thing- this time you need someone to trace for you. Line up all yer points close as possible, and trace. Feels like yer playing Twister. Nails on the coordinated might help. Aright, good fer a laugh if nothing else…I have no idea how other people come up with theirs.
After trying to cut from (continuous) paper printout and having mixed results, I used spray glue to attach the paper to thin ply andthen did a rough cut and sanded to the line to make a solid template. It comes in useful when I’m checking stuff later on (fixing mistakes and trying to re-blend the lines). It also helps when cutting veneer if you are doing a TFlex
edit: insert printout
Whether you get a template mailed to you, do the CAD route, or batten one up (my advice), you should put it on some permanent material. Cutting out a template and fairing it is great practice for the shaping to come. I used cardboard for a couple when I was 15 years old, but soon found old pieces of any thin ply were much better (but splintery!). Hard to blocksand the curve on cardboard.
After 20 years of using 1/8’’ masonite, I started doing a lot of my templates on sheet plastic. PVC to begin with, as Greg Loehr was using it for stringer material at the time, and he was right down the street. Now I get 4’x8’ sheets of really thin stuff from a friend who uses it for making plant tags for his nursery. This a recycled polyethylene product. Cuts with razor blade (or scissors), fairs very easily, dimensionally stable, waterproof, and very light and easy to store. I have over 40 spin templates on a light shelf, and the stack’s only about 3’’ across. I took a shortboard template and rolled it into a 3.5’’ diameter tube so I could put it on my scale. It weighed 63 grams.
One other piece of advice, not to do with your shape, but with your rocker (I am assuming you’re hotwiring out of a block). Cut out your rocker temps (outa hardboard or whatever), leave a little extra at nose and tail (approx. 6" or so, to guide your hotwire in and out of the block), and after cutting the temps, tack them together with small brad nails and sand them together so both are exactly the same. I didn’t do this on my first hotwired board and one side was slightly fatter than the other because of non-matched rocker temps (about 1/4" all the way around one side). I fixed it with the planner, but it was a pain in the a$$.
Just my $0.02. You might have already figured that out yourself though if you’re already on to your shaping. Good luck.
Laters,
J.D.
How about you do like the rest of us did in 1970 when a fish did not exist, we took the templates we had or started fresh and drew out what our impressions of what a fish should be.
Each geographic area and shaper came up with variations that eventually morphed into a generalization of the designs we use today.
Try a littler originalization
OK, here’s a quick tutorial for the outline part. It’s a very user friendly method that works very differently from
other softwares. It’s a little bit like when you plot on a piece of paper a few points and then use a long batten
and twist it to make it go through those points.
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Go into the top menu that says “Configuration” and decide wether you want measurements in cm or ft/inch.
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Next, in the lower part of your screen, enter the length of your template where it says “Longueur”
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Use your mouse to move the small blue dots in order to change the shape of your curve.
Any time you click on a blue dot, the following data is displayed next to your mouse cursor :
- "T" means width at 12" from tail tip
- "N" means width at 12" from nose tip
- "L" means max width and the number in parenthesis indicates the distance of this max width with respect to the mid length of your template
Those values are also permanently displayed at the bottom right of the screen.
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If you want to move precisely the blue dots, then select a dot with the mouse and use your keyboard (ALT + arrows) to move the dot.
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Above your outline, you notice some small blue crosses. You can move those crosses around to guide you when drawing your curve.
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Once your done, you can save it by clicking on the floppy disk button (on top) and get a unique code that will allow you to load back the template.
If you want to show your template in swaylocks, you can also make a picture out of it in a format that is well suited for Internet. For this you just need to click on the button at the bottom that says “Créer une image gif”.
If you want to plot that curve on plywood, paper or foam. Then click on the small yellow ruler button (on top right of the screen) and you’ll get precise measurement for length, width and half-width from tail to nose.
And if you live in Europe, use the lower part to also design your rocker/foil profile and then you can order online a blank that is machine cut precisely according to the template you’ve just drawn.
Hope that helps.
I understand that problem well. That’s where I started too, wanting to make a fish but having nothing but pictures to copy from. Also that was my first motivation for writing the printing for aps3000/akushaper and then moving onto BoardCAD. IMO BoardCAD is better for printing, but I have not used shape3D and I’m a little biased…
As for gluing up sheets and getting errors, if there is a grid printed on the sheet you can check for accuracy. What I do is snap a chalk line on the template material, then spray the template material with spray glue. For every sheet I stick down I align it to the chalk line and check the measurements against the grid. Cut out with a jigsaw and clean up with sandpaper. I think this is as accurate you can get without using CNC.
regards,
Håvard