Printing full size plans?

CoolHandMoss

New member
Is there any printing company that can print plans like those from Flite Test full size? Would Kinkos do that? Is there anywhere online? I've searched around a bit but I'm not familiar enough with printing like that to know what I'm looking for but I'm sure someone must be able to do it.
 

rockyboy

Skill Collector
Mentor
Yep - but make sure to bring a measuring tape / scale / ruler along with you and measure the little scale in the corner when you pick it up. I did have a problem once with a file being printed at the scale. If all the files are printed at 93% or something it's not really a problem, but if one page is printed at 100% and one is printed at 93% it's not so good.
 

JBradders

New member
Yep - but make sure to bring a measuring tape / scale / ruler along with you and measure the little scale in the corner when you pick it up.

It's also worth editing the PDF and putting a scale in the other direction as well.

A lot of plotters get out of calibration in one direction or the other if not checked & recalibrated periodically; so while you may have correct scale in one axis you may still be out in the other. Meaning that tabs won't line up and you'll likely come across other issues the cause of which may not be readily apparent.

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I cut my plans directly onto foam-board using a cheap chinese vinyl cutter and came across this myself. Before I bothered to calibrate it properly it was printing the Y axis a couple of percent smaller than the X axis. A small amount, but enough to throw things out when it came to parts fitting together properly. Eventually I worked out how much the error was and recalibrated the thing, but the first few prints I did I made allowances for it by rearranging all the parts so the orientation of each part on the plan was similar to how it'd fit together on the plane, and if there were multiple similar parts that they were all printed in the same orientation.