Best way to transfer plans.

kdobson83

Well-known member
Let me add my 2 cents here.

1st- Not all spray glues were created equal. The cheap spray glue at Dollar Tree is horrible. It's super heavy and wet, takes for ever to dry, if you spray too much on it'll stain your paper (looks bad if it's facing out), and peels off way to easy. Stick with name brand like super77. I LOVE super77.

2- To save weight on the plane and maybe have templates to make more planes or parts for when you crash, super77 the planes onto regular old poster board, then use those as templates to trace onto your foam. I did this with the FT Arrow and can now have an arrow built from the ground up in 1.5 hours.

3- If you don't want/need templates and you want to keep weight down, do what was mentioned above and just tape the roughly cut out plans to the foam and then cut out. Start with cut outs and scores and then do the perimeter. Tape works good, but I have found cheap glue stick work good too. If you do 1 part at a time the glue doesn't have time to stick and you can peel the plan off after you cut.

I personally use/have used all these methods but find having a print shop print full size plans and spray gluing to the foam the easiest, fastest, and most accurate.
 

CAustin

New member
Storing full sized plans is a pain in the butt for sure and your example of the Tiny Trainer layout is a good one in terms of parts you don't need. Rolling them up is terrible when you go to use them and leaving them flat in a pile takes a lot of space.
It is often helpful to treat the plans like a blueprint and roll them up with the print side out. That way the sheet will lay flat even after years in storage. I try to repurpose shipping tubes from work to store the sheets both as protection and to keep things organized.
 

sprzout

Knower of useless information
Mentor
I've used both Elmer's Spray Glue and Loctite Spray Glue adhesive to glue my plans to foam board. Why those two? Because when Joann's Fabrics and Crafts, Hobby Lobby, or Michael's offer discount coupons, I can buy a can for dirt cheap. I know I've heard people tout Super 77, but I've not seen it in my local stores, so I use what I can find. :)

The good thing with both of these adhesives is I can apply a light coat to the foamboard and then start sticking my plans down on the foamboard, lined up perfectly with alignment marks (thank you, @SP0NZ for putting registration marks in your plans!). Once I have everything cut out, I can peel the paper off (provided I did a light coat) and don't have to worry about it adding anything, or peeling away when I have to do folds and tack foamboard to the glued on template.