Copenhagen Ships Curves

Re: Copenhagen Ships Curves

William Duffield

Very good catch. I am green with envy.

I make do with a bunch of old plastic (used to be clear) French curves and some recent upgrades to the five stainless steel curves from Sterling Toolworks.

https://www.sterlingtoolworks.com/store/#!/~/search/keyword=french&offset=0&sort=relevance

I also use a pair of drawing bows (symmetric and asymmetric) from Lee Valley that I find quite useful.

http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/page.aspx?p=44631&cat=1,42936,50298

I'm undecided whether I prefer pencil, paper and curves or a CAD program, bezier curves, a mouse, an iMac with a 5K screen and a large format inkjet printer.

Re: Copenhagen Ships Curves

Thomas Skaggs, Foothills of Mount Level

I have the Lee Valley bows too. They are invaluable to me. Would love to have those ships curves too!

I have no interest in CAD or any other computer design. A large roll of brown craft paper and a pencil is all I need....oh and an eraser.

T.

Re: Copenhagen Ships Curves

John in NM

That is a cool find Bill. A big set like that is not going to get easier to find.

I have a 24" adjustable ship curve from the map room in one of my dad's old offices. I just googled it and they still make them, a bit surprising as long as CAD programs have been around.

drawing paper

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

I used to use Kraft paper (the brown stuff). It was not ideal. For Christmas daughter went to an art store and got me a roll of while drawing paper, 3 and 4 feet wide, and a modern eraser. The lines show up on the white paper. The eraser totally removes pencil lines from this paper. Having used this combination I would never again use Kraft.

Clarification

Thomas Skaggs, Foothills of Mount Level

I use brown craft paper and sometime red resin paper for full size layouts of my projects. It's cheap and serves the purpose well. However, for studio design I use rolls of drafting paper (plotter paper). Much the same as you mention...clearer lines and better eraseability.

Little has changed since my college and professional drafting days of the past. It wasn't broke then...no sense in fixing it. Yes, I just dated myself (old). But truth be told, I also spent years doing CAD at my (Former) job. I just did not enjoy it. I feel much more connected to design with pencil and paper.

T.

Dealing with rolled paper

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

Have you found a way to quickly, or even not so quickly, make paper that comes off rolls lay flat?

Re: Dealing with rolled paper

John McGaw

I have been told that steam will do the job although I haven't tried it myself and don't know any details such as which side to apply it to.

Re: Dealing with rolled paper

Thomas Skaggs, Foothills of Mount Level

After I cut a length off I roll it opposite on an empty tube. Usually does the trick.

thanks

Re: Copenhagen Ships Curves

TomD

They are still made, or available new (maybe not, I couldn't find them for the first time), but they are really expensive, hundreds of dollars. I am a trained yacht designer from YDI, and in all the extravagant purchases I made I never got around to a full set, or ever found a reasonable set for sale on Ebay.

I do have several different sets, the Copenhagan, Dixon Kemp, and many other individual curves, in digital form.

CAD is so powerful and free, that I hardly use the curves. It is ridiculous at this point to draw in anything other than CAD (for one thing your curves are free), but one place where I like curves is for detailing variable tension lines. Ships curves aren't just a set of individual patterns, they are a working set that goes together to create fair lines whatever the direction you need to take the curve in. They are for the most part used to design around standard plan scales. Unlike Cad that works from infinity and beyond.

One fun thing about ships curves is to be tooling around on a classic marine plan that has lines apparently laid down by God, and then, Bingo! Curve just falls right in place on the drawing. Hey?

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For wood, you can very cheaply get the standard set of 6 SCs from just about anyone, and you will probably find them as much as you need for most purposes. You can also get French curves, which are for something quite different, but also can be used in a series to create continuous effects. That may be why the whole set is not so popular (even when I started and CAD was rare). You can make just about anything by careful use of a few pieces, while having real knowledge of the whole set is a more daunting mater.

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I like the two or three pattern drafting curves for tailoring (something else I dabble in). They are cheap, large, and rugged aluminum.

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This is an antique display from online. Some of the curves included were not ship curves.

Curves were originally made of wood. I am making some out of scraps I get, from various patterns. Makes a nice decorator piece for a designer.