AutoCaD

Ian,

What are you drawing?

If you are drawing locomotives , rolling stock or structures, etc., then draw the items in full scale units - either inches or millimetres. When you plot, you set the scale in the plot setup to print out in whatever scale you want.

Even if you do your stock or structures drawings in specific scales, you can plot them out in different scales by adjusting the ratio in the plot setup, applying the appropriate constant to do the conversion.

Also, if you do your drawing using full scale units you can set dimensions in the drawing to reflect model dimensions so that when you plot your drawings, you have model dimensions shown. You can do this by adjusting ratios in the dimensions setup. The only problem with this is that your drawing is then tied to one scale if the dimensions are to be correct. However, there are primary and secondary values for dimensions, so you could show the dimensions for both 7mm and 4mm scales if that wasn't too confusing. Or you could set up several dimension styles for different scales and apply the appropriate style before plotting.

For a layout drawing, then you will probably want to draw in real life dimensions so that you can directly relate your layout and track drawing to the space you want to build it in. So track drawings will be at actual units - i.e. 32mm gauge is 32 metric units. If you have a source of track drawings which are drawn to full scale dimesnions, then you can import them to your actual size layout drawing by applying a scale factor.

There are lots more options in addition to what I've shown above - you've just got to try a lot out to see what suits you best.

Jim.

Hello Ian,

In Cad design it is common practice to draw all parts at a 1:1 scale. When making a drawing for production, first you have to scale a part up or down to let it fit onto your papertemplate. Then you set a dimensionscale (dimscale in AutoCad) for your drawing.

Jan

I use QuickCAD, and assume it's similar to AutoCAD for setting scales. Just set your drawing scale to 7mm and make the drawing. Save the drawing then change the drawing's scale to 4mm and save that. If you draw in reverse,