I might suggest, if you make your template out of acrylic or some such, you will be able to see the grain of the wood you are marking.
Templates
3
This was inspired by CV3's thread "Grow Your Skills". The flip side of of growing your skills is sharing what you've learned to help other members grow.
I've recently managed to make decent representations (to me anyway) of Derby, Cardigan and Incurved Market Stick handles.
Rather than try to redraw them every time I want to make one, I decided to make templates instead. It doesn't take long and if you have a favorite shape it won't take many copies to save significant time.
Templates also make it easy to tell at a glance if your blank is big enough to get the handle you want.
That way mistakes like the handle on the left don't happen.
Two of the templates are made from 1/4" scrap plywood. The derby handle template is an offcut from the cherry handled cane I'm currently working on.
I left the tops square to the shank on my templates so when I cut the handles out I will have an easy reference surface for drilling the handle to attach it to the shank.
Rodney
I've recently managed to make decent representations (to me anyway) of Derby, Cardigan and Incurved Market Stick handles.
Rather than try to redraw them every time I want to make one, I decided to make templates instead. It doesn't take long and if you have a favorite shape it won't take many copies to save significant time.
Templates also make it easy to tell at a glance if your blank is big enough to get the handle you want.
That way mistakes like the handle on the left don't happen.
Two of the templates are made from 1/4" scrap plywood. The derby handle template is an offcut from the cherry handled cane I'm currently working on.
I left the tops square to the shank on my templates so when I cut the handles out I will have an easy reference surface for drilling the handle to attach it to the shank.
Rodney
