Proportional Dividers

Any fellow sculptors out there use proportional dividers as a tool in their sculpting?

Looking for tips on how to use/read the markings on the divider legs... Circles? Lines? Huh?

Please describe your dividers and what you are trying to figure out in more detail.

My dividers are manufactured by Dietzgen.

One leg reads 'lines' it has hash markings at various points up the leg which are accompanied by numbers (which I assume are ratio numbers) that read from the point as follows 1.5, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

The other leg is marked 'circles' and has similar hash marks numbered 3, 4, 5... 20.

I am using them to check proportional thicknesses at various points on my sculptures as compared to other reference points. Is the thickness of the sculpted figure's left thigh the correct size in relationship to the head circumference as compared to the reference photo of my subject? Things like that.

Thanks,

I assume your dividers are a type of double-ended calipers with a pivot point that can be repositioning via a small nut, with the 1.5 marking being nearest the center and the 10 marking being toward one end. Naturally, the difference between the separation distances of the caliper legs on either side should be the multiple determined by the pivot point. This is easy to check by simply drawing a line on a piece of paper and marking the length of the largest separation and checking, for example, that it is bisected by the end with the smaller separation when the pivot is set at 2. Likewise, this line would contain 4 of the small segments with the pivot set at 4 and so on...

Here are a few problems to watch out for.

* Pictures of 3-d objects are always distorted, so you can only rely on photos just so much.

* Porportions often don't scale well. For example, a large figure will probably need to have different relative proportions than a smaller version of the same figure. (This is why the 12 inch versions of Michaelangelo's David always look so awful, aside from bad workmanship.) For example, a well-balanced, large figure where the width of the head has a certain ratio to the width of the chest, upon reduction, may require a different ratio to remain attractive. This is something to think about when you are creating a model that will be enlarged, or when your are reducing a large piece.

* You may find yourself needing to reduce or enlarge something to a non-standard (non-integer) size that isn't provided by your calipers. For example, you may want to enlarge 6 inch high figure to 13 inches high, or a ratio of 2.167. In this case, you might simply want to make your own dedicated set of calipers using this ratio for this particular

here is a simple way to figure out the divider scale,

draw a 1 inch line, draw a 2 inch line, fiddle with the dividers until you can get the dividers to read from 1inch to 2 inch

your smart you'll get it