printing large plans

As a matter of fact we are going to install one. It's been sitting in storage for a month waiting for a place to put it. I'll get the specs on it and see what it would cost to print plans(I will use it for that too). It'll be in an office 46Mi. away from me, but oh well. I once printed starcads plans for a trainer on 8 1/5X11 and taped it together. mk

A local community college or high school with a good drafting/CAD program may be an option worth exploring. It might be that you would even find a fellow flyer there. An offer for some free stick time might even get the job done free of charge.

After reading another thread I went to a plans site and downloaded a few old timer plans, updated for RC. I got the Spook, Quaker, Dallaire, and the Guff. After rearranging the parts to fit on a 30 inch wide sheet, I'm ready to put them on paper.

Now I'm looking for ideas of how to get them printed without spending $30 at Kinkos. Any suggestions? Anybody here have access to a large format printer?

Actually these are in DXF format. Somebody reworked them from old 1930s plans using a CAD program.

I thought about doing a series of 8 1/2 X 11 sheets, but I enjoy having the real thing on big paper. I usually just buy them from catalogs so the guy responsible for the work can get his cut, but these were freebies of redone 70 year old designs.

If your system can handle DXF format let me know and I'll email the files to you. I noticed that the old timers at this site

are done in ridiculously large format without easy cutting lines, so I downloaded a free CAD program to rearrange the parts and put them on reasonable sized paper.

In addition to DXF my software will also produce CAD, SVG, HPL, HGL HPG, HLT, and HPGL files. One thing I can't figure out is how to resize the drawing. I'm pretty sure my freeware program can't do it. The Dallaire is labeled as an 80" span, but the drawing shows it with a 120" wingspan. That's cool, but I don't want to build that size.

Hey, that's a good idea. I just moved to Springfield MO, and my nephew is an art student at the local M. U. campus. I wonder if he could gain access to a large printer....

I have had good luck at Staples. They are half the price of Kinkos. Ialways have the plans from a kit or a scratch building project copied as I usually ruin the plans when I start building. This way, I have the originals to save. Staples is, again, much less expensive than Kinkos. I had a full set of original Senior Telemaster plans. about six or seven sheets copied for for a fellow about 20 bucks. Frank Schwartz coming up on 82 years and still building and flying for the past 72 years........life is sweet....

Thanks for the tip. I'll try them.

I've copied plans for $5 at Kinkos before, about 5 years ago. I don't know if the ridiculous increase is because we're talking about printing from a CAD file instead of copying from paper, or if it's just a ridiculous increase over time.

I used to go to Kinko's the same way Frank does, but they go way too expensive for me. My last trip was $15 a sheet for a 3 sheet set. Yes, I have looked for alternatives and TNP suggests an interesting one.

If you have buddies that also want stuff printed, clubbing together and buying a large format printer makes sense. Maybe the local club could invest in one.

However I'll throw in the gotchas.

They are large. They are expensive. They are precision machines that DO need maintenance. Cheap paper is not stable. When you have taken a laser cut part and placed it over the drawing you printed of it and found it out by 1/8th inch on a humid day...you realise why precision (mylar or polyester) paper is actually 4 times the price of the cheap stuff. Inkjet ink runs when you spill coffee on it. And cheap paper buckles. If you get a DXF that doesn't fit your printer, you are in for some intensive CAD to sort it out. Likewise if it in fancy colors, or the lines come out too faint. etc.

Now I do a LOT of design for laser cutting these days, and I have accumulated most of what I need including a variety of software that an read almost anything.. It didn't come cheap though..I don't think kinko/staples prices are at all unreasonable. BUT if you are prepared to find someone in your club to take responsibility for all this, its a really nice thing to have around.

And before you know where you are, you will want t add a $15000 laser cutter, and a CNC foam cutter, a color laser for decals, and a vacuum forming machine ;-)

On Sat, 20 Oct 2007 13:00:52 -0600, I said, "Pick a card, any card" and Robert Reynolds instead replied:

Are you old enough to remember getting sent to the principal's office to get a stack of mimeographed tests?

-- Ray

You're right, but there is just something about opening up the plastic bin I store my blue line plans in and smelling the faint residue of ammonia....

On Sat, 20 Oct 2007 15:45:42 -0600, I said, "Pick a card, any card" and Robert Reynolds instead replied:

I took the occasional sniff. Doesn't seem to have done me any dam-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m . . . age.

It's Ok. I'll be all right in a second. Need coffee.

-- Ray

Oh indeed. I used to inhabit and office with a blueprint machine..God ..1979? thereabouts.

I even remember the gelatine copying stff. What was it called?..

Yeah, I remember that. The paper was always slightly limp. Any student who was given a stack of test papers would first sniff them deeply. Probably caused brain damage.

On Sat, 20 Oct 2007 15:45:42 -0600, Robert Reynolds wrote in :

The fluid that wet the ink, causing transfer of the image to the paper, was alcohol-based. We had a few gallons leftover in the basement from days gone by. I used them to start fires down at my family's camp.

The machines were called "spirit-duplicators."

Marty

mimeogello :-)

I THINK it was a hectograph.

Yup. still used for Tattoos apparently.

Another one for the trivia files.