When I was marking the centrelines for the staging I realised I had to come up with some way of marking the lines for the 90 degree curve in my staging yard. I thought about making a tramel with appropriately spaced holes for a pencil or marking pen. That didn't appeal to me as I would have to find a 'centre' for the tramel and that meant a juggling act with the tramel and my camera tripod then trying to mark out the lines without bumping the whole assembly while reaching into two and three foot deep table tops without ending up in intensive care! Giggles abound!!
I did make the tramel but instead used it to mark out the centrelines on a large sheet of 1/2 inch cardboard and then carefully cut along the lines. The minimum radius is 30 inches with each successive radius 60mm wider. The cardboard isn't big enough to cover an entire 90 degree curve, but by overlapping one template with the next I could markout the lines in one go. They worked very well but I found that they could easily be bumped if not secured somehow. I ended up nailing one in place while I held the other while marking the lines. I regret not shooting video of all this as a picture (or video) is worth a thousand words.
Different curves could be used together to make varying radii, transition curves, reverse curves etc. Very cool I think! The whole set of curve templates were a one off use but individual or pairs of curves might be used again. Considering the work in hand cutting these curves I won't be discarding them! Maybe I could make custom or standard sets to sell on ebay? Who knows?
ANYHOW!, that's all for now. Let me know what you think!
Cheers!
Stew.
Cool great idea Stew , good to have a good set templates like that on hand
ReplyDeleteCheers Glynn