Making templates from full scale drawings

[sjeff70]

Does anyone have experience making templates from a set of mechanically drawn, full scale drawings, using a flat-bed scanner?  So for instance, you scan a section of the drawing you want to make a template of on a scanner.  In theory the scanner will scan at actual size, allowing you to print as may templates as you want.  Question really is, will the document once printed out match the exact size of the full scale drawing.

[JohnG]

It depends on your devices and scan and print settings. If both are set to 100% scale, it should match. Or as close as your devices are capable of producing true size.

[sjeff70]

On 7/13/2022 at 4:02 PM, JohnG said:

It depends on your devices and scan and print settings. If both are set to 100% scale, it should match. Or as close as your devices are capable of producing true size.

Thanks John, have you ever tried it?

I couldn't find anything on Google with it being all commercialized now and the reviews on Amazon didn't help.  

[JohnG]

For woodworking? No. But for other things where scale mattered. If you use the same equipment for all templates it shouldn’t really matter if it’s 99.99% or 100.01% scale, it should be consistent. 

[wtnhighlander]

We have a scanner / plotter at work, capable of Arch E size paper. It produces exact copies of whatever is scanned, so long as no scale changes are made between scanning and printing. You should be able to the same at a printer shop, FedEx office, or whatever. Plotters and printers are just CNC machines, as accurate as any 3-axis router.

[Ronn W]

I have a large format printer (24" x 36")  It's dead on accurate when printing from my cadd program. That's the printing part of it. Print shops can scan a drawing to a file and then print it.  Try it once and see if is accurate.

[Chestnut]

As long as the scale is set to 100% or actual size on the print side it should be accurate.

There may be some scale options on the flatbed side as well but I feel like those settings are deeper and less often changed. More often in my experience the scale is changed on the printing side.

The other good way to get transfers would be transfer paper or tracing paper.

[sjeff70]

I should probably license this method if it works, as it's uncharted territory. 

Tracing paper is recommended by some authorities but work if more than one template is needed. Hence the impetus of my inquiry.

No harm in buying a scanner and trying it, worse case scenario is returning it. You'd think scanners would have gotten better since the last one I bought in 1999 but based on Amazon reviews not everyone is happy. Isn't manufacturing great. As I've always said what good is money if you can't buy anything good.

   

 

[JohnG]

On 7/14/2022 at 1:31 PM, sjeff70 said:

I should probably license this method if it works, as it's uncharted territory. 

I don’t think it’s uncharted, I think it just doesn’t warrant a large amount of discussion. 
What do you need a large quantity of the same template for? Most people make one set of templates on something hardy and reuse them. 
 

[BillyJack]

I scanned the router carver templates rather than going to UPS and using  there large printer. Multiple times printed  and taped Together...

 

If you have s drawing on disc, ect just take it to UPS..

[sjeff70]

I assume most people use Sketchup or the like so it's easy to print templates. I'm interested in period furniture reproduction so design isn't priority and I have a background in mechanical drawing. So I have everything I need.    

I've been watching a lot of Killenwood on Youtube and he uses templates from Sketchup. I find his content very valuable as there's very little content on building Federal period furniture.  So it dawned on me that maybe I could scan and print templates instead of tracing them. Sometimes there can be many of them.

https://www.youtube.com/c/killenwood/playlists

[BillyJack]

Is it not worth the time to draw it out yourself?

[sjeff70]

By the time I scan & print & what have you, I could probably just trace them by hand. Not having to depend on technology is very appealing.

[BillyJack]

I worked for a designer that had a large printer. It was great, but expensive.

Not used much

[Ronn W]

Mly large format printer is left over from my engineering days.  It's almost 25 years old.  When it finally craps out I will have to get a drafting board and a T- square and will be very thankful that I learned to draw by hand in my younger days. 

[Dave]

On 7/16/2022 at 11:08 PM, Ronn W said:

Mly large format printer is left over from my engineering days.  It's almost 25 years old.  When it finally craps out I will have to get a drafting board and a T- square and will be very thankful that I learned to draw by hand in my younger days. 

Make sure you can still update the drivers for the plotter before you update the computer operating system.  I have an old Xerox large format plotter that will not work on windows 10.  We have to keep an pre-windows 10 computer around to plot drawings.  And I still have a drafting board in my office with a parallel bar.  Somewhere in a corner  i have a Vemco drafting machine - I'm starting to feel old now.

[wtnhighlander]

Don't feel bad, @Dave. I've been keeping an essential set of Windows XP systems on life support as 'Ghosts in the shell' (virtual machines) for over a decade. Plant can't run without them.