I had an idea that’s been bugging me and I wanted to put a feeler out there to see if anyone has attempted this.
I’ve started shaping only this past year and I’ve been designing my templates using Illustrator, printing them, tediously pasting the printed sheets onto masonite, and then jigsawing them out into rather imperfect versions of my original Illustrator template.
This is working fine for now but I would love a faster way to get from concept to blank without that awful smell of masonite dust .
I had a thought that with a cheap projector, I might be able to project the outline onto the blank directly, saving me time and allowing for faster adjustments a no physical templates.
Has anyone tried this? Are there obvious pitfalls I’m missing here? I know there might be a challenge with perspective, the light can distort over the bend (rocker) of the blank, but I think I can adjust for this so long as I know the measurements I’m trying to hit. I don’t know. I would love to hear what this community thinks.
Fairly simple to tape several sheets of heavyweight Walmart poster board/cardboard together with clear packing tape. Attach your printouts and cut template with scissors.
I like the idea ,
but I guess it’s one of those surf-related side projects that will eat your time for a suboptimal result.
There are industrial applications that do exactly that, but what I have seen is neither cheap nor easy to set up.
I’d say the main downsides are that you have an fixed angle to look at , and once you projected your outline, then how are you going to proceed?
Freehanding the outline is a bad idea I’d guess.
What you see projected is not what you got on the computer, so you can’t use the file as well.
If you use the computer I’d rather use Aku from the start, or skip the computer stuff altogether and spend some time to build nice curve drawing tools - when your sure about the numbers.
Not holding you back,
I’m just a guy with high enthusiasm and low board count, so I no about wasting time on side gigs.
But I don’t regret that as well.
Back in the days before modern tech. I used to use an opaque projector I got used at a school equipment sale. I could take surfboard outline pics from a magazine ( thanks to board design forum in Surfer especially). Worked best if I knew the dimensions. Then I could adjust the projector until the image matched the specs. I would blow the image on a piece of door skin template material, draw it out as accurately as possible and clean it up with a block plane. Never felt confident enough to go directly to foam without the chance to refine the line before wasting foam.
Nice thing about wood or masonite templates is that I can use it later to true up the outline. I’m working on another frankenboard (glued up pieces of foam) and I use the template as my last check on the outline before turning the rails. I had a couple of spots that were slightly off and a quick sanding with the template on the foam allowed me to get it perfect. Can’t do that with paper or if the outline was projected.
I have done a lot of templates using Adobe Illustrator, then making 11 x 17 prints on heavy paper and taping them together. I would transfer that design directly to the foam, without making a wood template.
I still have most of those, but I started transfering that to a flexible plastic or a thin plywood as a spin template and they have become my favorites. I’ve also taken fiberglass from older boards I stripped and they make great template material. I still have quite a few full length masonite and thin plywood templates, and a couple full templates, but they are harder to store.
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