Being a one man shop has its advantages, but also has downsides, particulary if one needs more hands. Had to create a pattern for a fill piece joining the firewall and transmission cover. With existing parts not being perfect, different arcs, not square, tapered and so on, a pattern was needed and trying to hold the pattern board for marking was nearly impossable so I used the tape method. A $3 roll of 2"wide (beige, not $$$ blue)masking tape was layered across the span multiple times on top and bottom. The tape overlaps allowed the the matching of the 2 different arcs along the taper. Having enough tape applied and some witness lines marked, a razor blade was used to cut the tape at the metal edges and the pattern layed out on some sheet metal. Metal cut and rolled into shape and tacked into place with almost zero gap. Another thing about pattern is that I used cardstock from a paper supply company, comes in 24 x 40 x .025 thick. What is nice about using this material is that you can used a ballpoint pen and a straightedge to lay down a bend line and with your hands fold the pattern leaving a nice crisp fold.
Sorry, for some reason they double posted and I edited them out and reposted singles, took a little time.
pics work fine for me. Thanks for posting, hadn't used that card stock before, looks much better than what I have used
Hilarious, I've used those boxes, slice em open at the seam, fold the inside out and clamp with a couple paper clips til glue sets. Had 'em, needed a box to ship UPS.
Corregated cardboard is too thick and will not conform to a taper with 2 arcs, Working with a pattern close to the same thickness makes a better patern thats easy to cut with simple sizzors. plus I can manage the $3 for a roll of tape instead of stealing product
Great idea with the tape. I use the white sheets of poster board from the dollar store. They are a decent size and are 2 for $1.
I still got a friend at the news paper, every once in a while he brings me the single ply cardboard from a pallet of papers to use for patterns. Good tech I should have posted earlier but I got involved and closed my browser before hand.
Poster board is a couple bucks a sheet, I keep a few sheets on hand, even comes in fancy colors. File folders work well too for smaller stuff, if you're in an office there's usually plenty of those, everytime I get a new desk there a drawer full of someone's old files. I like the tape idea, have used it before, let's you make slices to get to flat and plan your welding, forming. That's for us non English wheel owning folks.
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/vote-now-tech-week-october-2015.995188/ Short time to vote
From a commercial paper supply, the pattern board is only .75 in quanity and 30% thicker then the art stuff from Staples. I like the bigger sheets to work with as they involve less taping to get the size I need. But the whole point was the bending by scribing a line with a ball point pen.
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