FT Design lines dont match

Srupp

New member
Am I doing something wrong when i am taping together my plans cause the lines dont match up.... when the plans first started coming out they did not match...ehh ok...years later they still do not match. So I am gonna take the blame and ask what am i doing wrong? when i print them out you would think you can cut one of the dotted lines and it will match with the next page...but there is no point to cut and you have to guess where it goes to kinda get it in the area. please someone tell me i am doing something wrong and how to fix. thanks guys.
 

CarolineTyler

Legendary member
Printers are rarely dead on accurate in their printing dimensions. Laser printers are usually a bit better than inkjet. The thing is to not beat yourself up over a little mismatch, use your eye and judge the flow of the lines. I use a glue stick to put the plans together as it gives a bit of adjustment time.
 

sprzout

Knower of useless information
Mentor
Am I doing something wrong when i am taping together my plans cause the lines dont match up.... when the plans first started coming out they did not match...ehh ok...years later they still do not match. So I am gonna take the blame and ask what am i doing wrong? when i print them out you would think you can cut one of the dotted lines and it will match with the next page...but there is no point to cut and you have to guess where it goes to kinda get it in the area. please someone tell me i am doing something wrong and how to fix. thanks guys.

First thing I can suggest - check your printer is printing to 100%. I had that same issue when I first started printing plans out; my printer would auto scale the plans to 103% automatically, and things wouldn't match up. Changing the printer settings to print at 100%, it started working properly. :)

Also, if you can, trim the plans up on the frame lines (on most sets of plans, it's the ones with the dotted lines going around to make them 8x10 images, if I remember correctly...
 

Brett_N

Well-known member
Just asking, but you ARE trimming off the edges of the paper, right?

Printers can't print to the edge of the paper, so on Sponz' plans, there are right angle brackets in the corners. You need to trim off the edges at those marks or things get wonky.

For long straight edges, I usually don't even worry about it. Line them up as best you can, but then take a straight edge and align the front and rear best you can, and score away.

it's foam - don't sweat it - some of my best flying planes don't have an aligned straight edge anywhere on them. you should see my flat plate 3D plane "Mr. Floppy"....the tail will twist 45 degrees out of square in a good hard roll LOL. It's fun to do knife edges where the tail and the wings are 45* off of one another!
 

mayan

Legendary member
It's fun to do knife edges where the tail and the wings are 45* off of one another!
That's wonky :).

@Srupp don't stress it if it doesn't align prefect. Try to get it as close as you can and you'll be fine. I have that on every plane I build and they all fly great!
 

Srupp

New member
I guess i should have been more clear. This question really comes from me being OCD. i visually line them up to the best that i can and make it work. BUT....WHY cant they line up perfect? ive been watching flitetest since before they started doing these planes...not that i am complaining ( maybe a little) and i am extremely thankful for these planes and what the Flitetest guys have created....But why cant they match up and yes i have it set to 100% and its more then a One Hundredth of an inch off. to be exact its really 5/32 of an inch off. No that's not that big of a deal BUT when you tile out like the F-22 Gen 2 the bottom left portion of body has 1 line to go off of. and when your paper already doesnt match it can get tricky. but like some of you said.. Just Guess.
 

Chuppster

Well-known member
I guess i should have been more clear. This question really comes from me being OCD. i visually line them up to the best that i can and make it work. BUT....WHY cant they line up perfect? ive been watching flitetest since before they started doing these planes...not that i am complaining ( maybe a little) and i am extremely thankful for these planes and what the Flitetest guys have created....But why cant they match up and yes i have it set to 100% and its more then a One Hundredth of an inch off. to be exact its really 5/32 of an inch off. No that's not that big of a deal BUT when you tile out like the F-22 Gen 2 the bottom left portion of body has 1 line to go off of. and when your paper already doesnt match it can get tricky. but like some of you said.. Just Guess.

Are you using an inkjet printer? If you are, you can expect as much as 1/16" discrepancy in print size. Maybe even more if it's a cheap one.
 

moret

Well-known member
I have found some of the tile plans do not line up well. But if I use the full size plans, save the pdf file then not use the web browser to print from, use acrobat reader. It will tile the plans and print the plans on 8 X 11 paper. It adds cut marks that you use to line up the plans
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DbleDuce

Member
I have found some of the tile plans do not line up well. But if I use the full size plans, save the pdf file then not use the web browser to print from, use acrobat reader. It will tile the plans and print the plans on 8 X 11 paper. It adds cut marks that you use to line up the plans
View attachment 135147
Thanks MORET, finally got a good print! I had given up on TILE printing because the bottom of each page the alignment was not printing correctly and would throw off the overall size.