carbon paper for duplication

[way_up_north]

I've watched lots of YouTube videos and read all sorts of techniques for transferrng the drawing #4 wing shape to the wood form block...

maybe I missed it. But what about putting carbon paper down on the wood , Mylar on top and trace the lines through .mylar does not get destroyed. Makes and exact copy of the mylar

Michael in toronto

[S Lathrop]

That is a doable way.

But I think that going to your local office supply store and have them print the Mylar drawing full size and the with a spay can of 3M adhesive, just stick the drawing down to the wood you want to use for the form block. There is a lot of detail on that drawing that is really nice to have on your form block.

Going forward in the build process, taking a full size drawing and gluing it to the material you are going to make that part from is a great way to make parts that are very accurate and true to the drawings. And it is way faster than laying out every part on the material before you cut.

[Chris In Milwaukee]

Just curious, why is are so many so hell-bent on copying the Mylar instead of using it as is? Inquiring minds want to know.

[S Lathrop]

I found that having the Mylar drawing on my rib former was extremely handy. And I figured that just gluing a drawing down was way faster than transferring the drawing to the former. Any time I heeded to reference the drawing, it was there on the former in actual size.

As a standard practice, I print and glue a drawing to the material I am going to cut vs. laying out the part from a drawing. Way faster and often times more accurate.

[davzLSA]

Ive been using that method for transferring full scale drawings on the plans to poster board to make patterns for cutting the parts from steel. It works very well.

[jaredyates]

I made a form block using carbon paper and it worked fine. If I were to do it again, I'd probably just glue the mylar directly.

[sjt]

I am pretty sure Bob will sell a duplicate mylar for very little if you own plans. I used the 3m glue and a piece of 032

[Collin Campbell]

I used carbon paper to copy the mylar to the form block...no good reason I suppose, just wanted to save everything for future reference I guess. But I do wonder about making paper copies. Paper is not as stable as mylar (perhaps thats why Bob used it...) Any change in moisture/humidity/glue would cause expansion/contraction and therefore slight distortion of the drawing. Also some copying procedures are not 100% accurate.

[Chewie]

The main reason I did not use mylar on MDF was because I did not want my only absolute-truth reference profile to be subject to humidity. I ended up laser cutting an aluminum template, with all the details transferred to a full scale DXF. I have gone back to that template and the DXF to answer questions many times.

[bergy]

Form-blocks, 4130 sheet-steel parts, most anything from stem-to-stern (oops ... it's not a yacht) I've made from plans by poking a sharp needle through the plans into what ever I want to cut. I usually trace the line of needle-pricks with masking tape for a line that is about as exact as can be determined. It is easy to use a chop saw on steel and cut very close to a masking tape without burning the line away, then grind to exact profiles on either steel or aluminum. I use a lot of vintage carpentry tools on aluminum, including old fashioned muscle-powered block-plane for perfectly straight beautiful edges. Have not turned on a router in years.