Best Material for making templates?

[Ink Splash Graphics]

I have been searching for a good material to use for creating templates, hardest part is finding something that you can conform to a curve or what not but then be able to remove it without it stretching... I've been looking at sandblast mask as this removes well and appears to be fairly solid during removal.

Any suggestions? What works best fro you guys?

 

[signage]

mask!

 

[Jillbeans]

Polytough Stencils?
Not sure if this is what you'd need.
Love....Jill

 

[Ink Splash Graphics]

Jilli what Im trying to do is lay material over an item and trace it to produce a template that I can then scan into the computer and use for designing for example an xbox or playstation console etc... but on a more difficult scale like dirt bike plastic.

 

[signage]

Just use premask and stick it to a flat surface and take a picture!

See post #4 in this link!

 

[Ink Splash Graphics]

Just use premask and stick it to a flat surface and take a picture!

See post #4 in this link!

Thanks signage! I remembered that post once I started reading it I need to figure out how to scale accurately in Illustrator once i've imported the photo... off to do some research

 

[J Hill Designs]

draw a scale on it before photo/scan

 

[Ink Splash Graphics]

Gave it a shot, so far not too bad... just need to tweak the vector here and there to get it just right... There must be an easier way to scale it in Illy though. I created a 1 inch block and then kept enlarging the photo until my drawn scale lined up with it... Be nice if there was a feature like Flexi where you could select an item and then scale all based on that measurement... perhaps there is but I haven't learned it yet.

Thanks for the tips I'll keep working on it and trying to make templates for anything and everything I can find

 

[p3]

why not stick the template you cut out to a fixed size and draw a box around it...like say you were doing cell phone templates. Make the template out of mask, place it on an 8.5x11 piece of paper, trace your template, draw the box for the paper, then just scale the whole thing to 8.5x11 and bam, it would be actual size. Or does this seem way to easy and can't work that well??? or do you have to be a rocket scientist to make templates.

 

[Ink Splash Graphics]

Yah scanning will naturally keep the scale... taking a photo will not.

The 8.5 X 11 does work well with small stuff but good luck fitting anything larger

It's not rocket science just trial and error and depending how picky you are a lot of node tweaking for the perfect fit.

 

[p3]

Seems like if dirt bikes were your forte, then you could cut out a sheet of plywood to the size to fit all the templates, paint it a bright green or some color that would contrast to what your making the templates out of and do it the same way. Then it could be re-used over and over for making new templates. Wasn't tryin' to be a smart a$$, just seemed like common sense.