Joggle sticks, determining curves on model ships.

[Kevin Kenny]

 

[LeoM]

Great idea, thanks a lot for sharing!

[BANYAN]

Thanks, I had seen this technique before and promptly had forgotten it.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Bob Cleek]

An alternative to joggle sticks ("pick up sticks") which is often helpful in tight spaces is to bend a strip of lead or annealed copper or brass against the shape to be picked up. The "dead soft" metal strip will hold the shape when bent and, when turned on its side, will serve a template against which the shape can be drawn with a pencil. 

[BANYAN]

Thanks Bob, another great idea - better than those 'contour' devices.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[berhard]

Thanks for sharing. I've been having problems fitting pieces and was hoping there was some technique like this.

[wefalck]

This method certainly results in a quite accurate copy of the curve. However, it appears to be rather elaborate. In effect what you do is, you trace onto a rough-cut template a line that is parallel to your target curve. So, there may simpler methods to do this. Boatbuilders fitting planks use parallel scribers for this: they clamp the new plank into place and then trace the edge of the already fitted plank onto the new one below.

 

Perhaps a compass where the legs can be locked in position could be used: at each frame location you draw an arc onto the template and then connect these arcs with a tangent line, which should be an exact image of the target curve.

 

Or take a short, rectangular piece of wood, put a short piece of dowel as a handle on it, hold this against each frame and draw a short line onto the template on the opposite side. Finally, connect these lines to get the image of your target curve.

[DaveBaxt]

Great Idea . Another one to keep . Thank you.