IIA’s 3D Laser Scanning Helps Bring Vintage Boat Back to Life

Classic cars. Time-worn tractors. Boats from a bygone era. Collectors in every category go to great lengths to restore their favorite machines in painstaking detail. With these types of passion projects, authenticity is everything.

The Challenge
When Little Rock Boat Works, an award-winning classic boat restoration company located in Rice, Minnesota, needed to reproduce a missing part for a rare antique wooden boat, it sought the help of Engineering Machining Fabricating Inc. (EMF) in Sauk Rapids, Minnesota. The versatile machine shop is a long-time customer of Industrial Inspection & Analysis (IIA).

“The challenge with this type of work is that restoration parts for these boats simply do not exist or are extremely difficult to source,” explains Shawn Omann, Vice President of EMF, Inc, who has worked with IIA’s Minnetonka, Minnesota Lab for more than a decade. “The ask from our client was to authentically reproduce a set of missing V-folding windshield bases for a 1932, 25-1/2-foot Dodge B, one of only three known to exist.”

The Solution
To ensure an authentic reproduction of the missing windshield base mounts, EMF’s client provided samples borrowed from a donor boat. Due to the unique freeform shape of the parts, originally cast in brass from hand-shaped patterns, Shawn knew that laser scanning was the best option — and IIA the best partner — to reproduce the parts in intricate detail.

“When our clients require extensive measurement and inspection of the products we manufacture, we have always partnered with IIA for those services,” says Shawn. “Naturally, when this project came up, I was already familiar with IIA’s laser scanning capabilities, so they were my first and only call.”

Dimensional inspection, such as 3D laser scanning, is the first step in the reverse engineering process, which allows for legacy components to be accurately reproduced when no design files exist.

IIA Application Engineer Paul Salzer, used a Faro Arm with laser scanning head to gather detailed dimensional data about the donated item. He then created a 3D NURBS model that allowed EMF to manufacture a new part, true to the original. The success of the project depended on clean, high-quality 3D CAD models that worked seamlessly with EMF’s CAM software — and IIA delivered.

“As expected, IIA did a fantastic job. The CAD models IIA provided were high quality and easy to work with, allowing us to program and machine beautiful reproductions in our CNC mills without any issues,” says Shawn, who has come to expect quality results and fast turnarounds from IIA. “I have always been extremely satisfied with the services IIA provides. IIA always manages to work with our timelines and figure out the best ways to accomplish the tasks, often coming to our facility to provide measurement and inspection of large parts right on our shop floor.”

Leaving another happy customer in their wake, the teams at IIA and EMF can savor the satisfaction of knowing they helped restore an antique wooden boat to its former glory.

“Thank you, Paul, and thank you IIA for partnering with us on this project,” says Shawn. “Somewhere on the water, a collector will soon be admiring our work, probably having no idea the efforts it took to make these missing parts a reality.”