Does anyone print full size drawings of their plans? I have developed most of my recent final drawings with CAD programs but don't have a large format printer.
I was thinking on visiting the nearest Kinko's to see what they have to offer for large printers.
Are there other places I should look?
Kinkos wouldn't be a bad bet. Just up the street from my house is a place that does a lot of blueprint services, among other things. They also print drawings from a number of formats. They can even print on vellum or mylar if that would be helpful. You might also try looking for a place like that.
todd
Using an old dot matrix printer and fan-fold paper, I can make full size patterns of portions of a CAD drawings. Suits my purposes
Gary
I recently bought a HP 9800. Had a buddy cut me a stack of 13 x 19 vellum paper (From 28 x 20). That makes for a SuperB size print. Plenty big enough for shop use and making notations. I paid under $ 300.00 (Can$) for the printer. (It also does nice posters.)
Anything, .dxf or .dwg I get from architects is all on CD or via e- Mail and revisions are also handled that way. The odd time I need a bigger drawing, most blue-print houses can handle .dxf and .dwg.
How big do you need to go?
rI print out all the individual sheets and then tape them together. It isn't perfect but works. As well, you can then take the taped up sheets into a blueprint shop and they can run you a full size. Just another option. Cheers, cc
Kinkos should be able to print E-size or roll size. If you need larger than that you're outside the realm of "plans" and into the realm of "lofting".
There's no real benefit to doing so however unless the drawing is so complex that it becomes unreadable in smaller sizes. If you're thinking of using the drawing as a pattern, don't unless you're absolutely certain of the calibration of the printer.
Fri, Sep 28, 2007, 5:19pm (EDT-3) snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com (Frank=A0Drackman) doth query: Does anyone print full size drawings of their plans?
Who needs plans? My questions are: What do you mean by 'full size drawings'? And, do you mean 'your' plans, that you drew; or plans made by someone else, that you bought? If you already have plans, why would you feel the need to print them? Or, do you mean print them the actual size of the finished product?
Not being the smartass many of you will feel I am, questions like this puzzle me. I consider any plans I may draw out, full size, as is - regardless of how large, or small, they are. Unless you're selling, or planning on selling, plans - but you didn't say that.
JOAT What is life without challenge and a constant stream of new humiliations?
- Peter Egan
Who needs plans? My questions are: What do you mean by 'full size drawings'? And, do you mean 'your' plans, that you drew; or plans made by someone else, that you bought? If you already have plans, why would you feel the need to print them? Or, do you mean print them the actual size of the finished product?
My guess is he mean full scale. That way, you can use them as templates. I once built a two story house from full scale plans. Worked out OK except I didn't realize the paper was curled. The roof leaked because of the way I made it curve to follow the plans. I probably should have joined the two halves of the house with nails instead of the Scotch tape like the plans had.
What Zip COde?
Find out where the builders and architects go to have their plans printed. We have a place in town called repro something. Real nice pricing and great quality.
Let your fingers do the walking.
Bob AZ
"Edwin Pawlowski" wrote
Being a stickler for detail like you are, where did you find blue tuba4's?
Had them special cut from blue spruce, of course.
This is probably a dumb question, but if they were full size plans, which I assume would be used for cutting out the parts, would calibration matter?
mac
Please remove splinters before emailing
mac
Please remove splinters before emailing
They yellow pages. Almost any print shop should be able to print it out. Some times a little neighborhood shop is cheaper than a name store.
Yes, but all plotters should be calibrated anyway. I have couple of size E plotters (36" wide paper by any reasonable length - maybe up to 20' long or so) and I could tell you once the plotter is calibrated (one time calibration for all future plots) its more accurate than my wood working skills.
Anyway you should work off the dimensions on the blue lines (or black lines) and not scale it off from the drawings. But for woodworking it doesn't matter all that much assuming the drawing is to the right scale off the plotter.
*cymbal crash* (obligatory)
"mac davis" wrote
Pretty amazing how accurate even a run-of-the-mill ink jet printer is for doing 1":1" scale drawings from a CAD/drafting program.
I print 1:1 scale drawings of parts, like corbels, curved chair back rails, and most any thing with a curve to it that will fit on legal size (8 1/2 x
14") paper, paste the printed copies on both the router pattern material and the project stock with Elmer's Glue, then rough cut the shapes on the band saw.You can still see the HP Ink Jet printed scale drawing pasted to the chair back router pattern in the following picture:
Yes. Most printers don't have the same error horizontally that they do vertically and the amount of error is not constant across the page, so not only the dimensions but the proportions change.
The amount of error may or may not matter for a given project, but you need to find out how much error there is before you can decide that. It's not all that hard to figure out--just make a drawing of a grid of half-inch squares, print it, then confirm that the lines are straight, the corners are square, and the squares alone one side and along the top or bottom are indeed all the same width within your allowable error tolerance. If they are you're good to go.
If you're using Kinkos or the like though, you should do this each time you print because you don't know whether they might have done something that changed the calibration.
Should be, but don't believe it unless you've tested it yourself or have the word of someone whose expertise you trust. And a production printer in a copy place I suspect that the utilization is high enough for wear and repairs to be an issue.
Blueprint places can usually do large sheet copying.
Max
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