Large format plan printing

[ridgy]

For reasons that I'm not sure I'm going to build a large rowing boat.

The plans have one of the sheets to be printed full size at about 3m x 0.95m but I'm having trouble finding somewhere to print them. My online searches reveal either printing up to A0 or on heavy vinyl for advertising purposes.

Anywhere that could print such a thing in thin paper?

 

[B27]

Back in the day, where I worked we had a huge HP pen plotter which would plot on paper rolls about 6ft wide. Not seen one for a while!

Projector TV and trace it on to the paper?

 

[Roberto]

Some printing programs allow to "tile" the image: they split it into many A4/A3images with reference crosses at the corners, you print all the individual tiles then you can rebuild the big image by collating all the tiles together. I tried once with a high definition nautical chart and the result was so-so, not sure I would trust it for a construction drawing, adding up small errors between every tile and the adjacent could lead to too big final errors. I am sure there are more serious alternatives, mine was made at a round the corner printing shop.

 

[Daydream believer]

I recently built 2 RC planes. The, expensive, drawings did come full sized,( circa1200 * 2100) but I did not want to use them direct as I did not want to spoil them for future use. So I copied them on to many A4 sheets. I then laid them out on 2 large cutting boards on my bench. Each one overlapping a little . I held them in place with tiny pieces of sellotape & using a hot iron set at 130 degrees, I covered them in laminating film. This fixed the resulting plan to the board at the edges & held all the sheets perfectly in place. On top of that it made a stiff covering that the glue did not damage much & I built the plane over the top. The film was easy to repair in the couple of places I damaged.. For some of the small detailed parts I copied more sections ( I did this in the begining) & laminated them & cut them to shape giving me stiff patterns., Fin, bulkheads etc.
All the sheets were laminated on one side only.
You do not have to copy the full width of the plan as a lot of it is blank paper. You do not have to copy the title, for instance. So just lay out the relevant A4 sheets that you need & the 600 wide film will cover the plan & overlap the edges Ok.
38mu gloss Laminating film is cheap- less than £30 on ebay for 150 metre * 600mm roll, so you can always sell it on to a model maker for covering a plane etc.. When the wife is not looking use her iron to lay it out. I have a proper model makers iron. One can use a heat gun & a padded cloth to apply the film. Just heat it up & rub the pad over the hot film pressing it down working from one end along the sheet.
You can do your plan as one large piece, or in sections depending on how you are going to do the job. There are details that you do not need in the beginning that you need not copy until later in the game. You always have the original to refer to if needs be.

 

[Wakatere]

These people seem to print long lengths - there must be others (I just searched "plan printing")

 

[ridgy]

These people seem to print long lengths - there must be others (I just searched "plan printing")

Perfect, thankyou.

 

[benjenbav]

Architects often still have A1 printers. There may be a cost attached, of course.

 

[ProDave]

When I was building my house a few years ago, the architects did indeed have a large printer. It was a big inkjet printer that printed from a roll of paper. Typically it would be used to print A0 plans, which google tells me is 841mm tall, so a little less than you want. But suitably scaled it could in theory print your 3M long drawing.

So if there is an architect near you try having a discussion.

 

[B27]

You might just get the plywood laser cut and avoid the plan problem entirely?

You might be able to extract co-ordinates from the CAD, which would enable at least checking stitched-together A2 prints or whatever were not building in too many errors?

Fundamentally, you should try to understand the process of where the shapes come form and what controls what.
If the plan is just mimicking the process of running some splines around a table of offsets, you might as well draught it direct on the plywood.
If you are generating complex twisted plank shapes then you need to understand the effect of small errors.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Anywhere with a large format inkjet printer can do it - most commercial print shops will have one. They advertised A sizes because that's what most people want, but the printer will do pretty much indefinitely long prints.

 

[ridgy]

The plans come with dxf files for the main hull CNC cutting and those parts are being CNC cut.
There are other less complex parts for the amas which needs full size printing but the link supplied above has been great and those plans are ordered and arriving tomorrow.

For those interested it's.an.Angus Rowcruiser.
Sailing RowCruiser