(We used screen captures from Project Binky videos to show their use of cardboard aided drafting as examples.) Car builders often joke about using CAD, Cardboard Aided Design, to build hot rods, muscle cars, trucks, and more. But it’s no laughing matter. The truth is, unless you have some incredibly bitchin high tech machines there really isn’t an easier, or more accurate, way to create custom parts from metal than by using a template. Builders often use paper, or thin cardboard to make patch panels for sheetmetal. But they also use cardboard (or chipboard) for making 3-D brackets, boxes, and parts so that they can fit them into the vehicle just like the real metal part will. Then, by flattening out the cardboard template you can lay it out onto your material and cut it into just the right shape. With some bending and fiddling, you can end up with the exact same part made out of metal ready to weld or bolt onto your project.
This is especially handy when building something that an off the shelf part doesn’t exist for. Or when trying to make something that is more custom than you can buy. Don’t get me wrong, there are thousands more ready to buy fabrication parts on the market today than even 10 years ago. And those will work for many builds, but not all of them. Take Cole’s Chevy LUV truck project that we are about to start welding tubing for. That sucker is going to have so many little brackets and fillers, none of which are available from the aftermarket, that we’ll be making them ourselves in almost every case.
But what to use for templates has always been a challenge. Chip board is commonly used, but expensive and sometimes hard to find. Poster board from the arts and crafts store works, but depends on the thickness available, and is also not cheap. So you can imagine just how excited I was when the Fab Forums posted the video below where they go a tip from a viewer about Ram Board. It comes in a couple different thicknesses, so you can get exactly what you need for whatever job, and it is only $30 for a 50 foot long roll of this stuff at Lowes or Home Depot. Hell, you can order it on Amazon!
Watch the video.
Fantastic! I save cereal boxes.
Same here, cereal boxes are perfect.
me 3.
Binky!
Yeah! Why no mention of the site where you grabbed all but one of your photos?
How about free stuff ????
Over the years I have been using cardboard that they throw away at COSTCO. Go to the back section of the store, where they have the paper towels and toilet paper. The have nice FLAT sheets of clean grey cardboard between the layers of paper towels to keep them from shifting and flopping around during shipping. These are the size if the pallets …about 4 ft. x 4 ft.. Put a couple pieces of string in your back pocket …when you gather and roll them up, tie with the string. They usually don’t have any string to give.
When you get back to the shop, let them loose so they flatten back out.
Free and flat is good !!!!
been using pop cases for years . I’ll look that stuff up
Jump ahead to 3:00 in the video to get right to the good part
There’s always some idiot trying to sell us something that is no better than what we can pick up for free!
Free is great. Spending more time and fuel to get said free stuff than you would make during that time is not.