Arminius,
I remember seeing you at the bridge
. How is horatius these days?
I do like Martin and chop myself a template out of card or whatever
There are a couple of wrinkles that may help:
If the hull shape is very curved and tapered I have a long thin length of lead strip about 4mm square, and I press this into the hull at the right position - then draw round the shape to get the first trial with the cardboard nearly right
Sometimes it is easiest to just make a bit of card which fits in the hull at the right station even if it is 1/2 inch from the hull in places, then cut seperate bits of card and glue them to the face of the template so that the edge of the "added" bit touches the hull. Do this with as many extra bits as required (I use pritt stick or hot-melt glue) then run round the messy template onto a better one and adjust to fit.
Let me know if a sketch of this wordstorm would help
Worth bearing in mind that you are aiming for a loose fit, especially if you are bonding it in with polyurethane (gorilla glue) or resin and glass - about an 1/8th (3mm) gap is fine. Too tight and you may well distort the hull!
andrew
same as Martin, only lots more words!