Scale and Actual Length

[Roger Pellett]

It appears that the thread is misusing the word Scale. I agree that it’s easy to increase or decrease the size of a plan. Troglodytes like me have done it with a xerox machine, although it can possibly distort things; a subject for another thread. This is not necessary resulting in a known scale, just a different sized drawing.

Scale is the ratio between the size of a real object and that drawn on paper, or of a three dimensional model.

Although there are various was for the original poster to enlarge or decrease the size of his drawing, without mathematically calculating the ratio between his modified drawing and the actual ship or boat he will not know the scale.

Roger

 

[Stewyf]

Hi. I build to near enough scale. First find the length of the ship you want to build. Establish whether it is overall or hull length. The divide by 72. This gives you the model length needed. Compare this to the a4 printed plan size. Divide the needed length by the a4 length. Set printer to print at that percentage. Check the required length is met. And adjust as necessary.. hope this helps.

 

[Tangopapa]

Hi. I build to near enough scale. First find the length of the ship you want to build. Establish whether it is overall or hull length. The divide by 72. This gives you the model length needed. Compare this to the a4 printed plan size. Divide the needed length by the a4 length. Set printer to print at that percentage. Check the required length is met. And adjust as necessary.. hope this helps.

Exactly. It's as simple as that. That last step of final tweaking is almost always necessary, but then you are done, barring any errors in the original drawing, which does happen. Then you might have to tweak again using the Mark 1 Calibrated Eyeball.