Thread: Shenzhou Build
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Old 06-21-2011, 06:11 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Pem Tech
Do tell....



Copied from PM sent to MarkB. Hey, I wrote it so I can spread it around if I want to...

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I have come up with a method of making a very nice looking wrap using common tools. You need:

1. A paper cutter. A common and inexpensive one can be had in the office supplies section of Wal-Mart for a little over $10. In addition to the way you are about to misuse it, it also comes in very handy for cutting cardstock strips to size.

2. An embossing tool. An inexpensive one can be found at Michaels. Look in the glue aisle or one of the ones adjacent to it. It comes in a clear plastic bag with a blue header and a blue oval in the middle of the clear portion, approx 7" by 1.5" and called a "double ended stylus."

3. Cardstock. I have done this with the material (64lb?) commonly sold for scrapbooking. I have not tried the heavier 110 lb stock.

The basic idea: cut a strip of cardstock the width of your wrap. Put that cardstock strip into the cutter along the paper guide as if you were going to cut a narrow strip out of its end. With the blade positioned out of the way at the other end of the clear plastic cutting wing, use the embossing tool to press the cardstock into that plastic groove the cutting blade would ride in. Remove the cardstock and admire the nice "stringer" you have just made.

By marking the cutter base next to the groove or sticking a small piece of contrasting tape or post-it-note opposite the groove from the paper guide, you have a reference mark to repeatedly make additional evenly spaced stringers.

Some further testing and measurement is necessary to determine how much this embossing causes the cardstock strip to shrink in the long dimension because that will affect the calculation of the proper spacing between adjacent stringers. Once that is done, it is conceivably possible to use a CAD program to print a cardstock strip with evenly spaced lines, then emboss along those lines to make a wrap. This technique is even applicable to making the wrap for the tapered part of the aeroshroud; good luck trying to find something like that already made.

You can buy the tools and try it or I can send you a sample of something I have done. I showed this to Carl McLawhorn at NARAM last year. Like me, he was impressed at how nice the result was. It is just not something he can commercially exploit. Not until I become smart enough to build him an embossing robot...


Bill
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