creating rough drawing to workable plan / template ?

[frosty]

Hello everyone, have been lurking for a little while .... only about 10 years ;-) lol

I have finally got to a stage whereby I am able to start on a build and so I have finally decided on the 'shape' / 'profile' that appeals to me .... oh, and the boss.
Not a fan of the square box or horse trailer style on wheels ~ so it's a real teardrop for me.

Not at all familiar with CAD or sketch etc. so what I need to know is how to get my 'shape' from the attached photo to a size as a workable template to mark onto the actual side walls.

Size will be 8 x 4 or possibly 8' 6" x 4' 6" as I am able to source locally structural ply sheets sheets 10' x 5' ( 59 inch) and it will be queen bed size wide, so around 5' or so wide. Roof will be aluminium.

I'm also a total noob as far as building a trailer, but have managed to stumble through the renovation of a couple of houses .... so my plan of attack is to think of it as a small house on wheels !!

ok ~ my preferred profile

Little bear V pico V ultra.jpg (39.23 KiB) Viewed 9978 times

Thanks for the help

cheers
frosty

( Graeme Frost )

[pchast]

Hi Frosty,
Welcome....

[frosty]

Hi Frosty,
Welcome....

thanks Pete.
had a read through your foamy build. nice
btw, did you ever get your insurance sorted?

cheers

[Bodeanoo]

A sure fire way to copy a curved line is by using X,Y coordinates. In your case you extend your base line out past the front and back of your trailers body and then draw a perpendicular line up to the furthermost point of the body front and back. This represents the total length of your body. Now with an architect ruler or any ruler with a fine scale, measure off equal length marks at the point where the base line meets the front perpendicular line.
The spacing on these marks depends on how sharp the curve is at that spot . This is where the up scaling comes in. I printed out your plan and determined my scale to be 1 inch =12 inch on my print . Yours could be bigger or smaller I don't know. I did what I think I described above to your plan.

[frosty]

Hey, thanks for the reply Bodeanoo. I don't quite understand where you got those measurements from ~ just yet ~ but give me time and it might sink in

Had a search and found this thread and the methods shown ~ did you use one of those to plot it?

http://tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=25744

I have no idea of what figures / measurement etc. that needs to be entered for the formula's to work
in BDizer 's one or the one from Glenn Butcher

(although the one shown in Glenn's pic seems close to what I need)


frosty

[daveesl77]

Get some graph paper, 1/8" squares are best, but 1/4" will work. Print the design onto the graph paper. Take known length, like the trailer frame. Say it is 8' long and on the graph paper it crosses forty-eight 1/4" squares. 8 feet is 96 inches. 96/48=2. Thus, in this example, each square represents 2". This gives you reference points for everything else on the design.

On your curves just note where each trailer profile line crosses a graph paper line. Take some cardboard and flatten it out to exceed the total size of the trailer profile. Mark x and y axis on the cardboard, for a central reference point. A good point of reference is the frame bottom for left/right and the axle for up/down. Make sure the x and y are exactly perpendicular to each other. Mark your baseline on the cardboard (your trailer bottom, probably the frame). Now just mark the 2" positions of the profile on the cardboard, as you noted them on the graph paper.

With ours, after we got the rough design, we put the cardboard on some plywood, used paneling nails to mark the 2" locations. We then took some of the thin cedar strips we had cut to create a natural curve between the nails. We marked the complete curve, then cut out the shape on the cardboard with a good utility knife. Now we had a template we could transfer to the plywood. Yes, you could just do it straight onto the ply and not use cardboard, but the reason for the template was it allowed us to "sit inside" the profile before we cut anything to see if we wanted to change anything, and we did.

dave

[Aguyfromohio]

Like you, we wanted a full-size wall template to cut all the wall components exactly the same shape with smooth cuts.
We made a full size plywood template essentially like the graph paper method.
Since we designed in a CAD system we picked off some guide points digitally rather than scaling the graph paper, no real difference.
Two other critical tools were a router with a flush-trim bearing bit, and a 14 foot slender stick, about a half inch by a half inch.
I made that long stick by purchasing a 14 foot piece of quarter round trim and cutting it down square.

We marked a handful of guide points on the plywood. We tacked the slender stick at the guide points with little brad nails.
The long slender stick created a beautiful smooth curve between the guide points.
When we were happy, we nailed it down sturdy with more tiny brad nails. I have a little air nail gun for 18 ga brad nails, but you can do it by hand with tiny nails.

That gave us a nice smooth little fence surface to follow with the bearing on the router bit.
Worked like a charm. Pried off the slender stick, pulled out the last few stray brads with pliers.

Our TD is bigger than a single sheet of plywood, so we patched together a bigger panel.
I recommend using half inch ply. We used 3/4, and it's just way too heavy.
That 3/4 template is hard to carry and move and wants to break at the seams just from it's own weight, even after we reinforced the seams (butt joints).
We make it work, and it's very useful for following with a router to make all the curved trailer parts.

For ours, the front end and tail end are true circle arcs. So we drilled the centers and screwed in 1/4-20 threaded brass insert and rigged up a trammel/ compass for a router that uses those centers. Next time I don't think I'll bother with the centers and trammel, I'll just use the slender stick all the way around.

Good luck!

[QueticoBill]

Not better or worse necessarily, I believe some folks have used a projector, projected onto template stock, and drawn the curve on the template. Freehand sabre saw as near the line you like and belt sand or otherwise smooth it out.

[pchast]

Hi Frosty,
Welcome....

thanks Pete.
had a read through your foamy build. nice
btw, did you ever get your insurance sorted?

cheers

No. Here the trailer is covered for liability when connected to the tow vehicle.

The under 3000 invested in the build is not worth what was cost quoted by the
only company I found. They would cover only material costs for repair not labor.
I had to transfer at least one other coverage to that company for them to write
it too. I would loose discounts having all my coverage with my current provider.

Pete

[Bodeanoo]

[url]http://tnttt.com/VintagePlans/pln_cowper.pdf [/url]

[frosty]

Thanks to everyone so far ~

My apologies for the late reply, but I have been working away and came back to a dead computer at home!

All fixed and now back to researching

thanks for the informative link to the Cowper too

cheers ... frosty

Australia