The Form Frames

I used MDF fot the form frames. They are much easier to work with than plywood IMO. I ran into some problems though because I was not paying attention. I bought a few 3/4" 4x8 MDF at Home Depot (of course) and had them cut to the size (41"x23ish). Little did I know that the HD saw machine was totally out of calibration. They are nice clean edges though. Somthing hard to get from a jigsaw done at home. So back at home I proceeded to trace them with carbon paper (use multiple 8x11 sheets) on the MDF, form-frame pattern on top and tracing paper on top of that and using a pencil to transfer the pattern. Of course the edges have to be lined with the form-frame and the pattern first and clips to hold them in place.

Using a jigsaw I cut out the patterns. Yes, I'll be using battens so that batten thickness needs to be taken into consideration. All cut and ready for mounting on the strongback.

The Strong Back was level. I proceeded to mount the form frames and that's when I saw the problem. The out-of-calibration HD saw has cut some of the form frames about 1/16th to 1/8th off of each other. Some were short and some were taller. By then I had mounted all of the form-frames and I was ready to break it all up and start again. I reached out to Ian and he said it should be fine. I couldn't deal with it. I took them down took it back to HD for recut but they wouldn't do anything less than 6". So came back and mounted them again. Only this time I used shims to hold them level and them screwed them into 2x4 cross pieces. It's kind of level now.