Taking measurements from a paper drawing

Discussion in 'Software' started by Owly, May 30, 2019.

  1. Owly
    Joined: Oct 2016
    Posts: 153
    Likes: 16, Points: 18, Legacy Rep: 10
    Location: Montana USA

    Owly Senior Member

    I've been trying to pull measurements from a paper drawing that has longitudinal stations shown from which I and derive a scale in order to build a scale model. From these measurements, I can go to another drawing and derive a usable scale and generate the offsets needed to build the bulkheads, etc. It's a time consuming process, and the accuracy isn't great. My next step is to have a print shop scale the drawings up, preferably to my model dimensions. I really do not have good tools to do this accurately..... I ordered a Scalemaster from Ebay... cheap, and am considering getting a set of digital dividers also. My thinking is that the digital dividers would be the best tool, as I should be able to easily get an accurate measurement, scale it up on the pocket calculator (or down as he case may be), then open up the divider to the figure I get to plot my points accurately. Any suggestions???

    H.W.
     
  2. TANSL
    Joined: Sep 2011
    Posts: 7,369
    Likes: 699, Points: 123, Legacy Rep: 300
    Location: Spain

    TANSL Senior Member

    Could you teach us what you have? The correct thing, in my opinion, would be to draw the boat on a 1/1 scale, with a good CAD software, to proceed with the smoothing of the shapes generating the "fairing" and, once achieved that, to print it at the scale that you need to build your model.
     
  3. wet feet
    Joined: Nov 2004
    Posts: 1,391
    Likes: 433, Points: 83, Legacy Rep: 124
    Location: East Anglia,England

    wet feet Senior Member

    When I have done this kind of thing for model making,I have found proportional dividers very useful.I agree that if you have the software there is nothing better than modelling the boat full size and then printing to the scale you are building at.Going one stage further you could use the 3D model to get the model CNC machined.This would probably be faster and more accurate than building by hand but it would cost a bit and maybe remove the fun of building.
     
  4. RAraujo
    Joined: Apr 2010
    Posts: 145
    Likes: 37, Points: 28, Legacy Rep: 114
    Location: Singapore

    RAraujo Senior Member - Naval Architect

    If you have access to Autocad (or other CAD software) you could scan the paper drawings, import the scanned images into Autocad and scale the image to whatever scale you want.
     
  5. JamesG123
    Joined: Mar 2015
    Posts: 654
    Likes: 76, Points: 28, Legacy Rep: 10
    Location: Columbus, GA

    JamesG123 Senior Member

    If he had or was versed in CAD he probably wouldn't be posting this question here. The learning curve for pretty much any CAD program is pretty steep and may be beyond the investment he wants to make.

    One "cheat" would be to find the scale of your original drawings, and then scan and copy/print at the different, appropriate scale percentage for your model. The whole thing comes out in the size that you need without having to do any calculations. I used to do this when making model aircraft in the pre-PC days.
     
  6. TANSL
    Joined: Sep 2011
    Posts: 7,369
    Likes: 699, Points: 123, Legacy Rep: 300
    Location: Spain

    TANSL Senior Member

    The data, the forms, directly obtained from a drawing in paper may not be correct, normally they will need a fairing process, in order to be able to make a correct model of the boat.
     

  7. Owly
    Joined: Oct 2016
    Posts: 153
    Likes: 16, Points: 18, Legacy Rep: 10
    Location: Montana USA

    Owly Senior Member

    Thanks for the input......... I'm not a computer graphics / cad kind of person..... I learned basic drafting in the 60's on a drafting table in school, and while I'm anything but computer hostile, in fact an early adopter....... first personal computer before DOS existed. I'm not remotely interested in learning a CAD program at this point.... a drafting table will serve for my purposes, and absolute faithful accuracy is not a huge priority. I'm working from a set of study plans with drawings that are not necessarily to scale, but sufficiently so to serve my purposes. the boat is built from flat sheet, and I'd like to play with some of the dimensions in multiple models.
    I live 80 miles from a town with a print shop. This afternoon I made a trip to pick up an diesel engine block and a pump and set of injectors, and dropped in to a print shop and got a quote of $3 per page to scale and print to a size suitable for my project...... not too bad... I can manually make the dimensional changes I want once I get the original scale figured out. I think I'll order the digital dividers.... it would be nice to have a function that would allow me to set it to read out real world full size from drawing size, but that doesn't seem to be a feature of these...... Scalemaster uses a roller, and it would be more useful to me to put a point here and a point there, and get a scaled measurement at a preset factor. I'm not confident of getting really accurate numbers from a roller without working in blueprint scale.

    H.W.
     
Loading...
Forum posts represent the experience, opinion, and view of individual users. Boat Design Net does not necessarily endorse nor share the view of each individual post.
When making potentially dangerous or financial decisions, always employ and consult appropriate professionals. Your circumstances or experience may be different.