Buying Smithsonian Drawings

[Roger Pellett]

Does anyone have any recent experience buying drawings from the Smithsonian?

If so, I already have the catalog that I got at an NRG Conference. Can I shortcut the process by ordering from it or must I follow the two step process outlined on their website?

I’ve posed the same question directly to them.

Roger

 

[TheGatzby]

Haven't ordered from the catalog, but I ordered online and I recall it was a very simple process.
I had a little trouble with what they sent me, and a little back and forth took care of it.

 

[DocTom]

Roger,
I just ordered plans from them. I copied the order form in the catalog and mailed it with a check. It took less than 2 weeks to get the plans. I emailed them first to confirm the number of sheets in the plans I wanted (it’s $10 per sheet) and cost.
Tom

 

[polydoc]

Does anyone have any recent experience buying drawings from the Smithsonian?

If so, I already have the catalog that I got at an NRG Conference. Can I shortcut the process by ordering from it or must I follow the two step process outlined on their website?

I’ve posed the same question directly to them.

Roger

Just about all of their plans are reproduced in Chapelle's numerous books which can be obtained inexpensively. For my rather small scale models I have had no trouble copying the plans in the book to the desired scale.

 

[Roger Pellett]

Actually, I did use one of Chapelle’s books to begin my model. Unfortunately, being from his American Small Sailing craft the drawing is quite small and under magnification some detail is not understandable. I was able to copy the table of offsets and to draw a lines drawing.

Fortunately the Smithsonian replied to their Contact Form found on their website. Drawing is $10. Shipping $5.

Roger

 

[DAWarden-(Jaager)]

That $5 is good for up to 12 sheets - or used to be. I tended to order for than one vessel's plan while I was at it.

OfficeMax can scan and get you a PDF for <$10 if you provide a USB stick for it. The PDF is more than twice the size of the paper plan if directly printed back out..
They can also save as PNG and JPEG but the file's size is huge.
Painter does not know from PDF. The file size may be too large for it if it did. I have to get it to a format that Painter likes.
JPEG is lossy -- PNG is loss-less -- PNG has an alpha channel. A 1:48 of a liner is too large as the complete plan.
Adobe PS has a free trial period - it can import a PDF, crop it into smaller sections and export as PNG.

If you do this, make sure that HIC has a scale on the plan. Otherwise, add your own.


On another site - there was a question about what to do with a downloaded free plan from the site.
My glib answer would be: if you have to ask, you are not ready to do anything with such a plan.
My second answer would be: what part for a model is so large as to need a printed copy of the whole plan?
In a drawing program, isolate the part of interest and just print it out. Unless your scale is insanely large - a 8.5x11 sheet of paper should hold any component's plan.