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I asked in another post if anyone had any shortcuts for cutting wood to fit exactly against the side walls of the trunk. Y'all came up with some pretty sweet, effective ideas. Unfortunately they were all the same things I've been doing. However, for anyone still interested, I came up with a beauty. Rough cut the sides to fit as close to the walls as you can. Then, use a compass and scribe the edges by tracing the contours of the sidewalls with the non-pencil end. In my case, my compass sucks ***, so I taped a pencil to a large socket. Photos explain all. Worked like a ****. Exact fit was the result. Best part, it's quick as hell.

The tool:


The useage:


After you've scribed the contours onto a template, what you'll have is the exact replication of the walls, except it'll be a smaller scale. Like say you set your compass at 1/2 in, you'll be 1/2 short on all sides. So, what you do after you scribe you template is simply put your template over your wood and reverse trace the scribe onto the actual piece you are going to cut. In my pics above, I'm using wood for the template.

 
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HAHAHA Never thouht of that but good method!

 
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what about getting it to kninda fit in teh first place?

 
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Measuring and eyeballing will get you close enough. Even a rough, rough shape will work. Hell, if you use a wide-enough scribe, you don't even have to cut. Just stick the square edge up to the trunk wall and scribe. If you wanna start close though, using the stock carpet as a template will work. Also, cutting out cardboard (I prefer posterboard) will give you a nice template too. It's just a matter of getting close enough to reach with the tool. The best thing to do would be to overlap in the middle of the trunk where your two or three pieces come together, and go back after and trim them to fit together. That way you'll have whatever room you need to move the board down after you've lost something off the edges. The edges are the hardest part. Scribing works awesome!

 
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The methodology wasn't the most common, but I give you a 10 on the creativity. (I'm trying to sound all proper and shjt). LOL, hell, if it works, use it is my motto.

 
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lol how about taking out that carpet piece in ur trunk. u kno that thin layer on top of the board.

take it out, lay it on top of a big sheet of cardboard / wood, whatever ur gona use. then trace. and put the carpet back. lol much easier

props 2 stephen (crewchief) on that one. he told me thats how he did his. haha

 
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Wow, that's interesting.. Never would of thought of that one

 
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Agreed that its easier to just trace the carpet. Problem is, my carpet was irregular and didn't cover the whole trunk. Also, not everyone has a carpet in their trunk. Not to mention its a valuable trick to learn for other uses. For instance, the side walls of your trunk if you were making a vertical cosmetic panel. There's no carpet to trace there. Scribing works just the same.

 
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Oops, I forgot the second part to the scribing thing. I've edited above.

 
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scribing is another good way of doing the same thing. We use that as a technique for cutting overhead consoles rather than doing trunk floors. But the idea is the same.

One thing that will let you skip the step of cutting a smaller scale part is to keep the scribe at the same angle. say, you can draw a mental line from the center of the pencil to the center of the socket, in this case. Keep it perpendicular to the length of the car as you trace, and its an exact fit every time, the first time.

 
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Not following you. If you held the scribe perpendicular all the time, wouldn't you would end up behind the original lines - not possible in a trunk. Like this:

The red is the trunk and the blue is the scribed line.

 
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no, you dont end up behind it, as long as your scribe is pushed up agsint the inside trunk. the only time it fails inside the trunk is when the trunk wall is parrallel to the scribe angle, which doesnt occur till we reach the latch panel. otherwise, it works like a champ!

 
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Hmm. Seems to work, however, you couldn't use either one of the angles you and I displayed. Mine, because the vertical lines overlap and yours because the horizontals do. Overlapping won't work. We can't get he orignal template close enough to scribe. Also, the only way it would work without reversing, would be if you had one area that afforded you some play. For your examply it would be the top. If you had an enclosed area, like the whole trunk, it wouldn't work.

If you scribed this without reversing, you'd loose something somewhere, on one end or the other, it would everlap.

 
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oh well, it was worth a shot anyways.

 
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Well, its more than a shot. I think it definitely works. I'm gonna try it your way today and see. I certainly do have room to play in the front. So I can just kick the template forwared and out a little to scribe. I'm just trying to figure out every possible angle, understand the problem completely. I like these threads. Some intelligent conversation about actualy fabrication. Its a nice change from "whats the best 8000 watt amp for my AudioBahn subs"?

 
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i may give this a shot on Sunday... i need a new trunk floor... HomeDepot here we come...