Custom Hog Lines with Delivery Guides

So you’re wondering, what’s up with the hog lines?

The short answer is that the hog lines have been custom printed to include indicators of where the imaginary lines of delivery intersect the hog line.

The intent is to inform instructors performing short-broom lessons where their broom is with respect to the house at the far end of the sheet (behind them).

I attempted to design them to be self-explanatory, with the “righties” references in solid lines, and the “lefties” references in dotted lines. The colours reflect the respective ring in the house (red for 12 ft, blue for 4 ft, white for 8 ft and buttons).

What follows is a longer-than-necessary explanation of how the custom hog lines were developed.

The 5 screenshots above illustrate how SketchUp was utilized to draft a curling rink layout to scale. Lines of delivery were added from the middle of each hack (left and right) to the edges of the 12 ft, 8 ft, 4 ft, and button. The 5th image shows the measurements the lines of delivery (righties hack only) create as they cross the hog line (4″). These measurements were used to draft a custom hog line.

The image comparison above illustrates how a drafted custom hog line overlays with respect to the lines of delivery. Hog lines should be accurate to within 1/32″.

Closeup images of the delivery guides.

As they would appear to an instructor performing short-broom drills, standing on the opposite side of the hog line from the delivering hack (above).

As they would appear to the person delivering (below).

If you are still reading this, clearly you are interested in the topic of Lines of Delivery, which I will dive deeper into with my first blog post, so stay tuned!