Patent ID: 7363872

Claim:
A method of preparing a skin plate for a hydrofoil structure, comprising: (a) cutting a metal plate to an initial size and shape as a skin blank; (b) determining separation line locations on the skin blank for parallel cuts to separate the skin blank into skin parts for respective structural sections of the hydrofoil structure; (c) bending the skin blank into a required hydrofoil skin shape; (d) supporting the skin blank in a predetermined position; and (e) cutting the skin blank into at least two separate skin parts and simultaneously providing a beveled margin on each of those separate skin parts in a single cutting operation by utilizing at least one pair of cutting torches, each cutting torch of each pair cutting a respective bevel on a margin of one of a respective pair of adjacent skin parts while the respective pair of cutting torches are cutting the skin blank along a separation line to separate the same pair of adjacent skin parts from each other.