I made an interesting find on a jobsite a little while
ago. I discovered a Contractor's tool I
had not seen before. I had often
wondered how Contractors replicated the many curves that we, the designers,
sweat and fret over on paper and in the computer. The center to a radius is sometimes located
twenty to thirty feet from the curve, in the next room or even outside of the
building. What fabulous, computer guided
set of French Curve tools the Contractor must require for such a task. We must be talking laser levels and GPS, right?
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| High Precision Curve Making Tool |
I don't mean to expose the "man behind the
curtain" or anything. But a broken
pen taken from a bank, some electrical tape and a bent wire are used to create
our graceful curves and detailing. Just
goes to remind you that we do not control the means and methods of those
performing the work.
I'm intrigued. How do they use it?
ReplyDeleteI am not positive. This project had a lot of curves - flooring, ceilings, casework. I just saw it laying there on the site set, but my assumption is they used it to draw the radius of circles to cut out because the pin side is so much deeper than the pen on this 'compass'.
ReplyDeleteHow does this work if the center point is 30 feet away in the next room?
ReplyDeleteThis tool was used for a different curve, a much smaller one. The 30 foot radius was undoubtedly created by something just as ingenious, like a nail and a string.
ReplyDeleteThis looks a lot like a make-shift compass just to scribe a circle. But how can this be used accurately? I don't see that it's possible to make adjustments without bending the wire slightly?
ReplyDeleteI do agree though that CAD software makes drafting much easier. But because it's so easy now, it's also very easy to make mistakes! People tend to rush designs through now, and don't bother to dimension their drawings correctly because they are electronic copies.
Elmer @ Double Edge Rentals
Thanks for this remarkable post..informative blog
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