Get design from Plans to Foamboard

[erad05]

Hi everybody,

i'm new here in the forum and i'm new to build from foam boards.
After searching the Internet I found here in Switzerland a Hobbyshop that sells the original FT Foamboards.
It's called "Insider Modellbau Schweiz". www.insider-modellbau.ch
Thanks to FT Team, I downloaded the FT Versawing plans and I got the Foamboards today. I'm excited to start building my first wing with pusher option!!!!

Now my question: What is the easiest way to get the design on the plans to the foam board? Any experience.

Thanks .... Peter Adler
from Zurich, Switzerland

 

[lrussi750]

Hello! Welcome to the forum. I usually tape together the plans and cut them down into smaller sections. I work one section at a time. I pin the section of the plans I'm working on down to the foamboard using T pins in a few locations so the plans cannot move. Then I use a pin to poke holes through the plans into the foamboard. Once I poke all the holes for that section I remove the plans and use a razor blade and a metal ruler/straight edge to cut out the part. I make all the cuts straight at first and then cut the curves second. I then work on the score cuts and cut-outs last. I stack each part out of the way in a safe place until all the parts are cut out and then its time to start building. It will get easier with time and experience and you'll figure out what works best for you.

 

[erad05]

Thank you very much for your input.

 

[kevinjt4]

I pretty much do the same thing that lrussi750 does but actually cut each part out of the printed plan then pin it to the foam. The I outline the plans onto the foam board for every corner and straight line. Kinda like a semi- dotted line but not all the way around the plan part. Then for curved areas i outline the entire curve to get it right. Then use a metal straight edge and a very sharp xacto blade, or two. Time consuming, sure, but the plane looks very clean and sharp.

On a side note, I'm slowly building a needle cnc table to cut my plans out (as I'm tired of cutting out four pages of plans that have 70+ pieces to them.) Once the plans are converted to vector format, I can cut planes out in minutes instead of hours.

 

[Forster]

I tape the plans together, cut out the parts and stick them to the foam board with spray mount. I spray the plan part with spray mount, let it dry for a minute and then stick it to the board. Letting it dry a little first keep it from sticking too much to the foam board after the parts are cut out.

 

[SP0NZ]

This is the method I've used for a few years and I find it works very well.

https://www.flitetest.com/articles/make-reusable-templates-from-plans

 

[DKchris]

I pretty much do the same as Kevinjt4............including slowly working on an upcoming cnc needle cutter solution for the exact same reason. Currently, if a plan might be interesting to friends of mine, I also glue the templates to posterboard. A big difference for FT plans is that I primarly build from 6mm Depron, since I'm based in Europe. And that usually means that I scale up the plans to 125-130% size, as this means all slits, cutouts etc. fits my foam without futher issues. Has worked out nicely. Scaling up is a piece of cake, I just open the untiled plan in Adobe reader (IX or newer), and use the "Poster" function in the printer setup menu to retile it to my printers max page size(I happen to have access to an A3 printer). It does mean the nice cut/retile marks from the tiled plans aren't available to me, but Adobe Reader can add simple cut marks when retiling. It does often cause it to use more pages, though.