DIY Windscreen/ Windshield
Use CAD software to design your own custom components
BuilderĀ Fritz Husselmann needed a windscreen for his Glen-L Hell Cat. As many of you know, boat windshield hardware is both expensive and hard to find, so Fritz decided to design his own using online 3D CAD software from Onshape. You can see the images of his mock-up and actual build below.
Click here to go directly to Fritz's creation. Feel free to use this file and Onshape to modify or create your own custom windscreen frame.Ā
We asked Fritz for some additional thoughts:Ā
The best thing is to change one parameter at a time and preview the result before moving on to the nextāit's possible to make it generate strange results if the inputs go out of whack, so changing one thing at a time makes it easier to know where things went wrong.
For actually finding out how to cut the wood, it's up to the user, but what I did was to hide all the generated components and then make them visible one by one. As I went through them, I used the measurement tools to find lengths and angles to cut. This would be different for different people depending on what tools they have - e.g. a compound mitre saw owner would want to measure the mitre angle on the face of the piece and the bevel angle between the surfaces of the cut, while someone using a pull saw would probably want to measure the bevel angle on the side of the piece instead.
However, the old "measure twice, cut once" is so important here āas most pieces have compound miters on them, you have to be careful to make sure you get the angles right. It's probably a good idea to make a couple of test cuts on some scrap pieces and measure the results to practice the measuring and marking before cutting the windscreen pieces. ā¢SCAā¢
A very interesting approach. Thank you for sharing.
I can understand the appeal of using this, or a similar, CAD program. The primary attraction for myself would be the highly accurate visual image achieved without having hand drawing abilities. I can do rough (very rough) sketches but nothing on the scale of accuracy that a CAD program can do. But for the actual building of the windscreen, I think I'd stick to my cardboard model approach. First do a mockup, then step back and see how it looks. Keep changing and tweaking that until satisfied. Cutting of the wood comes from many years experience. I'm not exactly sure how I know how I do it, but it gets done. (There is, I admit, a pile of scrap trial cut pieces at the end. The height of the pile is usually in direct proportion to the complexity of the job at hand.)