Actual-size shuriken spinner template

This blog post goes with my YouTube video showing how I modelled a shuriken spinner template in Sketchup (the video is embedded at the end of this post). I put a link to the Sketchup file in the description, so that you could download the file and work with it yourself, but this is obviously not much help if you don't have a copy of Sketchup that you can use (Sketchup can be downloaded for free from here but maybe you can't or don't want to install it, for whatever reason).

So, here's a JPG image of the template:



To get this to print at the correct size, it needs to be printed at '100%' without any scaling. Instead of saving or printing the image shown above, which the blog software has almost certainly resized, download the original from here (you'll probably need to right-click and choose 'Save As...' or 'Download') and save it on your device. Now you need to find a way to print it without scaling, which will depend on what device and operating system you're using; I can only help with Windows.

On Windows, you can't just right-click the file and choose 'Print' because that always scales the images to suit your paper size - that's a reasonable thing in most cases where people are printing their holiday photos or photos of their cats or whatever, but it's no good for printing a cutting template. Instead, right-click the file and choose 'Open with' and then 'Paint':


When the Paint program opens, select 'File' and then 'Page Setup' and set Scaling to 'Adjust to 100%':


Click OK. Now you can choose 'File' again and then 'Print', and the template should print out at the correct size - check that the central circle for the spinner's bearing is 22mm in diameter to be sure. If the size is not quite right, check your printer settings and make sure there are no extra scaling options being applied - for example, 'borderless printing' is a common option that actually enlarges all your prints slightly, so make sure that's turned off.

If you're on a Mac or Linux, this process may be easier or harder, I don't know - if anyone has any advice for people on non-Windows platforms, please add it in the comments below.

Thanks for your interest and have fun making those spinners!

Here's the original Sketchup modelling video:


And here's the video of me actually making one:


Thanks for watching!


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