While in grad school I became a fan of what I like to call Past & Punch Templates. When you need to fabricate a part that is particularly funky or needs to be exceedingly precise, you print a full sized drawing from CAD and past it onto the material that needs to be machined. Fairly simple right? For years I’ve used spray 77 to adhere the template to the part, but then you have to deal with removing the adhesive from the part when it is going to be painted or moves against another part. A step I feel too lazy to take at times.

Last week I got to thinking how ideal Post-it glue would be for this kind of work. Post-its don’t mar other surfaces, and it is a hell of a lot less hazardous than spray 77. If only they sold the glue without the Post-It. Well they do (kinda, see here). You can find the adhesive at Amazon. It comes as a glue-stick that couldn’t be easier to apply (added bonus: it brings back memories of kindergarden.)

Perhaps this could be used to afix routing templates as well. I haven’t tried it yet, but it sounds good in theory. I’m ordering a stick this weekend and I’ll let you know how it goes. So as to not sound like a 3M shill, you can also Google “repositionable adhesive” to look for similar products.

Fun links: Electron microscope image of Post-It glue. Wiki link on Post-it notes. Re-stickable Glue Stick MSDS