# What size to scale to?



## shane Wink (Aug 30, 2014)

I have been reading the archives and looking at templates and found a kestrel from Mr Magpie, thank you very much sir, but how do i know how to scale it to the size of my hand? I scaled the kestel to 4 5/16ths across the forks side to side. I would like to shoot it with the thumb and forefinger but the lower portion of the handle seem a bit long. Is this normal or did I size it wrong? If I intended to shoot it only with the fore finger and thumb would rounding out the bottom of the handle and shortening it to fit into the palm better be advisable with the design?

I cut a template out to see how it all fit to find the above out.

shane


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## jazz (May 15, 2012)

shane Wink said:


> I have been reading the archives and looking at templates and found a kestrel from Mr Magpie, thank you very much sir, but how do i know how to scale it to the size of my hand? I scaled the kestel to 4 5/16ths across the forks side to side. I would like to shoot it with the thumb and forefinger but the lower portion of the handle seem a bit long. Is this normal or did I size it wrong? If I intended to shoot it only with the fore finger and thumb would rounding out the bottom of the handle and shortening it to fit into the palm better be advisable with the design?
> 
> I cut a template out to see how it all fit to find the above out.
> 
> shane


hi shane Wink,

I am not sure if I properly understood what is your problem but it seems that the answer to all your questions is: yes.

Slingshots (both the frame design and the rubber setup) are highly personal matter because we humas, thanks god, are so anatomicaly and otherwise different.

What I do when I come accross the same problem with a template is first to remind myself that somebody put down a template according to their best knowledge and not pretending that it suits all.

So, if you have any vector drawing software, then, if the template is a bitmap image or a pdf file, which most of the times they are, you simply import it into youur program and draw on top of it and try to fit your curves best you can against the original drawing. (You do not hav eto be too precise here, anyway you are going to cut out a board, rasp ,aybe and sand the thing so you can shape it there too.)

Then, before any printing, just to be close as possible, try to figure out general dimensions, width and height, by simply analysing and measuring critical points of the frame as they might fit your hand, and redo it in your program.

(By the way, it is usualy CorelDraw, Adobe Illustrator but also a bunch of free vector drawing programs.)

Then you can do first printout on the paper, then you take scissors and cut the thing out, and then you trace it with a pencil on a thicker cardboard and cut it out again.

(Sometimes I make two or three cardboard cutouts in order to have a thicker and more realistic feel.)

With little imagination and some holding and thinking you can widen/shorten or lentgthen/shorten your vector drawing and each time you will be closer to what suits your hand best.

This is what I do when I come across the same problem, not pretending it is the only way..

cheers,

jazz


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## shane Wink (Aug 30, 2014)

hehehe I am old school and only draw handguns lol. I understand all that but having never shot a sling like that before i dont know if shortening the bottom of the handle so it fits like a ball in the palm of my hand would matter or not.


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