>On the subject of copying shapes - I seem to remember once having seen and
>handled a strip, rod or bar of a material that looks and feels like plastic,
>bends easily in shapes and does not spring back when the bending force is
>removed. I don't remember anything of the occasion; it may have been
>a sample of
>a novelty material looking for an application.
>Anybody know more?
Sounds like a flexicurve - a tool used in secret by us amateur
draftsmen to draw curves, often when fitting curves to plotted points
on a graph. In secret, for fear of name-calling from the real
draftsmen, who disparaged its use. It bent in one plane only, so I
assumed that inside its plastic exterior it had something like many
thin strips of lead (it was quite heavy) interleaved with perhaps
polyethylene to reduce inter-layer friction. Don't know why I'm using
the past tense - I've still got mine somewhere around! However, I
would not think it would be satisfactory for capturing shapes on the
large scale we're talking about here. If you could even find one long
enough, its weight would mean it would tend to sag, and not retain
the shape while trying to transfer. Maybe doing it in several
sections with a short one might be feasible, but I think the splash
moulding method is more likely to be satisfactory.
regards
Rowland
| PFA 16532 EAA 168386 Young Eagles Flight Leader 017623
| Europa builder #435 G-ROWI
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