Model Boat Plans (sheet plan v download)

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Dear All

As some of you will know I dabble with design and produce drawings in both traditional sheet and digital download.

I am curious to know which format do model builders prefer and more crucially what do you think that the future holds?

So come on you lurkers this is your time to shine

Paul

Edited By Paul T on 12/11/2013 17:57:26

[Dave_PParticipant @dave_p]

I am sitting on the fence over this one and I just got a splinter.

Seriously, I can see the advantage of both. On the one hand you get a nice copy of a plan without any distortion due to the vagaries of home printing off the computer but on the other hand with digital download you can print off as many as you need for your build so if you have a mishap you just need to print another.

I suspect the future is to go for digital downloads.

Sorry if I'm not much help.

Dave

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

I tend towards the traditional plan as that is what I am used to but I can see the advantages of Paul's approach too.

However, what is the best way to present, for example, a complex warship plan where it is the job of the model maker to work out what the construction sequence should be?

Colin

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

What would the copyright implications be of printing your own plans??? (and perhaps passing them on).

I would imagine that small vessels, for instance….oooo… landing craft, this would be ideal, but sticking a million A4 copies together to make more detailed vessels would be tricky and probably less than satisfactory. Obviously less complicated vessels around the 6 feet mark might well be fine…

Ashley (get them plugs in. son)

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

The concept of digital drawings is not to have huge sheets of paper but to merely print off the relevant section as required.

In the case of a warship the main drawing would be viewed on the screen rather than on a million A4 bit of paper and the builder would only print the bits or templates that were required.

Sticking with the warship concept my digital design of the new Type 26 provides all of the necessary information to build a 2m model the advantage of digital design for both the designer and builder is the ability to zoom into see close up detail of any piece of the design.

For example this image it the traditional side elevation that you would get on a paper drawing

If you wanted to see a closer view of the 30mm gun on a traditional drawing …well you cant unless the designer has provided a separate detail but with a digital image a simple zoom in gives instant access to all levels of detail from the entire gun to a single holding down bolt.

Paul

Edited By Paul T on 13/11/2013 15:25:06

[Trevor HollowayParticipant @trevorholloway99134]

Currently I have two projects on the drawing board, one is a traditional paper plan for the 2m corvette that I have had to enlarge on a copier to 300% and print out on A3 paper just to get the hull formers printed and also a set of digital plans for a LANDING CRAFT* printed off on A4 which still needs some sticking together but can be done at home.

Zooming in on digital files is only as good as the amount of detail put in by the designer.

Both systems have their merit.

* = shameless plug

[Kimosubby ShipyardsParticipant @kimosubbyshipyards]

I've always liked unrolling the large A2 or A1 plans onto the worktop at the start of the build. Yes its a chore trying to copy parts of a large plan such as winches or emplacements, but then sticking lots of A4 together then leads to errors of alignment.

Its bad enough that some plans come supposedly at the same scale, only for the user to find something like a 5% error between the plans (usually after you've cut the hatch) only to find deck and profile did not match. That could be compounded by sticking A4 together.

Not many have A3 printers.. I suppose we could support our local drawing office, they have the facilities for big print offs and only last week I got a plan scanned and printed at A0 for £3.50

Kim

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Kim

The advantage of a true digital design as opposed to simply digitising an existing A0 sheet drawing is that digital designer does all of the thinking about how the drawings are split up with the result that any detail printing should not cover any more than 6 sheets.

Paul

[TelstarParticipant @telstar]

Hi Paul,

For me Digital plans are the coming thing. It would save much time if I could select parts,eg. bulkheads direct from the screen, feed into my homemade CNC router, and cut them direct. Who knows perhaps it may be possable to software convert parts of a digital plan to 3D and print directly on a 3D printer. The subject of an earlier thread on this forum

Ashley I always thought making copys of parts of plans etc. for your OWN use is not a breach of copyright, providing you have bought the original licence, ie payed for the plans in the first place. As for pirating plans even paper plans can be photocopied and "passed on". not that I approve of these practices.

Using Pauls example: on a digital plan by Zooming in, or out, you can see the detail of the gun, zoomed in, and the exact placement on the ship, by zooming out.

cheers Tom

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Hi Tom

Such software to convert for a 3D printer does exist.

My digital drawings can be requested in different formats such as DXF, AutoCAD for transfer to other systems or for driving a CNC machine.

The problem with digital drawings is getting people to think 'outside the box' as most tend to make direct comparisons to sheet drawings which, whilst understandable is very short-sighted as the digital versions can offer so much more than simple lines on a piece of paper.

Paul

[TelstarParticipant @telstar]

Hi Paul

Your preaching to the Choir on this point. The factory I ran maintenance for before I retired had just got to the state of digital site plans, it mde life much easier to zoom in on parts of the factory (just like Google Earth), to be able to identify in detail plant and services, the old way was to work through fileing cabinets of drawings and specifications, a tedious job.

It took me months to scan in drawings (on A3 scanner) stitch them together then 'trace' them to CAD format using TurboCAD. When faced with prospect of of printing the various frames etc. pasting the patterns to cut out I chickend out and built a 1M x 0.5M x 0.1M routing bed and CNC'd it.

The latest move is to make a lazer head to fit in place of the router, but the model boat is still on theto do list

cheers tom

[Lord HavengottenyParticipant @lordhavengotteny]

Hello fellow Designers & Modellers;

Let me add a Canadian (my) perspective. Here, we are more "Imperial" than

in the UK. In my 40 yr career in the design/drawing office, I rarely saw metric

sized dwgs unless we were looking at references from a foreign (European)

contractor. Of course I am comfortable designing both with Imperial/metric

scales, but I would have to think, how many A (8.5×11&quot sheets would I need to

copy download plans onto paper. A4 sizes are rarely found here.

Lord Havengotteny (Calgary)

Edited By Lord Havengotteny on 14/11/2013 19:58:01

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

My Lord

Whilst it is true to say that the digital drawings have been produced in metric a simple flick of a switch can change the dimensions to imperial, if there is ever any interest in my drawings from Canada or the USA I will flick that switch.

[Dave MelvilleParticipant @davemelville64810]

Whenever I have scratch built from a plan I have inevitably had the original copied possibly more than once so that I could make/work on the constituent parts in manageable chunks.

A digital version would have been more efficient as only the required bits need to be printed. I have a sign cutter which works as a printer so I can do 24" by whatever length of paper I put in the machine.

I recently built a 1:100 model of the RMS Olympic and used plans that were 12' x 30" on six sheets so the photocopying required was not cheap.

Full size plans are ideal (essential) to locate detail in the correct position but often far too big to use for most of the construction.

My ideal would be a paper plan with a digital disk.

Dave

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Dave

Thanks for the comments but from a purely commercial point of view providing designs by downloads represents a huge cost saving to suppliers as there are no printing or postage costs so it would be unlikely that suppliers would offer sheet plans and digital in the same package.

However there would be nothing stopping the purchaser from going to somewhere like Staples and having some copies run off for themselves.

Paul

[Dave MelvilleParticipant @davemelville64810]

Paui

I agree. Just me asking for what would suit me best.

I have had a digital subscription to Model Boats since it started. Unfortunately the new pricing structure from next year doesn't seem to follow your commercial point of view.

A digital plan would be my preferred delivery as it would be a snip to alter the scale to suit my needs.

Dave

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Dave

The commercial point of view is something of a movable feast, as a designer my wish is to get designs out to the public without loss of quality or scale as quickly and as cheaply as possible. The download ticks all of the boxes for me especially as it means that I retain control over how the designs are presented and supplied but best of all there are no middle man costs or profits.

A profit driven supplier will obviously take a different point of view.

Regarding your comment about changing scale I am sorry to say that my designs are primarily supplied in PDF format and as such the scale can not be changed without a great deal of complicated manipulation. The point of using PDF is to ensure no degradation of scale.

I am happy to supply the designs in DXF but only after the purchaser signs a copyright agreement.

Paul

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

I suppose one advantage of a sheet plan is that if you want it scaled up or down you can simply take it along to the local copyshop as I have done on more than one occasion.

Colin

[Dave MelvilleParticipant @davemelville64810]

Hi Paul

I am happy to comply with any copyright conditions and any copying I undertake is purely for my own use.

If I can source plans in digital format that would be my preferred option.

PDF is a good standard and as you say the scale is maintained.

If you have designed in a DXF type format then I believe you could offer the plan digitally as PDF in whatever scale was required so that would be of great value and also help Colin.

Dave

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Colin

The problem with changing scale simply by expanding or reducing a sheet drawing is that you can't guarantee an exact scale either with the change in size or even within any of the new copies as photocopying isn't a fool proof way of maintaining the aspect ratio.

An example would be trying to reduce a sheet drawing by half which on the face of it should be a simple enough task however with photocopiers or scanners there is the risk of stretch or shrinkage which in the case of our example might mean the horizontal axis of the drawing changing by 50% but the vertical axis might only alter by 42%.

The only truly accurate way to re-scale a sheet drawing is to re-draw the entire design in the chosen scale.

To scale up or scale down a digital drawing you can either request the designer for a transferable format copy such as DXF and do the re-sizing yourself, or ask the designer to produce a set at the new size for which there might be a small charge.

Dave

I produce my designs on TurboCad but issue them as PDFs simply to avoid any errors creeping in during any digital exchanges i.e. from TurboCad to AutoCAD or a purchaser trying to open TurboCad format drawings with an artists software such as Corel.

When requested for digital format drawing I usually issue them in DXF as this is a common format throughout the CAD systems.

I hope that this helps explain some of the differences between sheet and download drawings.

Paul

[Dave MelvilleParticipant @davemelville64810]

Paul

That's good to know. I use Turbocad so DXF suits me fine. Do you have a list of drawings/plans that you sell?

Dave

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Dave

Strictly speaking I don't sell plans as the majority of my design work is charity based, at the moment I have 2 sets of designs available with a further 6 in the process of being compiled ready for download.

 

The current drawings are for the Ellie range where you get three 3ft models for the price of one and a very basic Landing Craft design that I produced for Ashley and his team for next years D Day anniversary. The following link is to the just giving site where a donation of minimum £5 will purchase a set of drawings http://www.justgiving.com/Model-Boat-Fundraiser-ParkinsonsUK simply make a donation and send me an email with a copy of the receipt, I will then email you a full set of drawings in PDF format.

Drawings that are complete and in the process of compilation are a 4ft Edwardian motor cruiser, a 6ft Type 26 frigate, an 8ft Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carrier, a 4ft Barrel Back speedboat, RiverCat a catamaran style fast pilot boat that appeared in Colin's special edition and a nice 5ft narrow boat.

Paul

Edited By Paul T on 19/11/2013 15:17:47

[Author]

Posts