How to get larger than 36" X 48" plans printed?

[Marty Hammersmith]

     I have a Staples store less than 20 minutes from my house and at about $8 a page they're great for printing out plans that are less than 48" wide. I have found several airplanes I'd like to build that are more in the 52" range. The Staples app doesn't seem to allow tiling and sometimes I'm missing important information if I print the plans full scale and let it be naturally cropped. How can I get the larger plans printed?

[Dan McEntee]

  Ii use a FedEx-Kinkos store near me, and have never run into that problem. The plans I have made direct copies from are usually 36" wide or less and the printers will usually make the plan as long as it needs to be, ( it can be as much as 10 feet!) and the cost is per square foot over their standard 36"X48" price. If it's a digital file, the file needs o be formatted so it is orientated that way o the sheet. I have never run into that either. I think 36" width is the standard for most of this type of work. I usually get C/L stunt and free flight plans printed. Larger plans for a quarter scale model or some other large model may be another matter.
  Type at you later,
   Dan McEntee

[Mike Morrow]

Thus guy comes highly recommended on rc groups. Maybe he can help you.

https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?4452777-PLANS-PLANS-PLANS%21%21%21-Printing-Service

Mike

Sent from my SM-A146U using Tapatalk

[Dave_Trible]

My experience is the same as Dan.  Staples machines don't have the capacity like the ones at FedEx/Kinkos.  You are still bound by the width of the paper roll (36" I guess) but length isn't a problem.  I have many plans that exceed five feet in length.   My limit is more about the size of my drawing table and reach of my T square.  Yes I actually DRAW plans,  not CAD them.

Dave

[Gerald Arana]

I find an 8-1/2" x 11" piece of paper to be sufficient enough (with measurements of course) to build anything I want to build. 

I need to preface that: I'm a retired Land Surveyor and I had to draw all my record maps for filng with the county recorders office. So naturally drawing out a small plan to balsa is a very easy task for me. OBTW, I like to design most (Not all) of my competition ships. 

Good luck, Jerry

PS: I've even taken measurements from the web and built a plane. 

PPS: Yes, I have a drafting table. Anyone want to buy it?

[Steve Helmick]

I was told to go to a Staples store, but apparently it wasn't the right Staples, so they were useless. I'll have to look for a FedUp/Kinky's store. Meanwhile, I ordered full sized plans from AMA's plans service and had them in about 5 days and didn't have to burn any gasoline ($4.399/gallon last week). Yoeman Kits "Dixielander" plans, exactly what I wanted.  Steve

[Rusty]

My experience is the same as Dan.  Staples machines don't have the capacity like the ones at FedEx/Kinkos.  You are still bound by the width of the paper roll (36" I guess) but length isn't a problem.  I have many plans that exceed five feet in length.   My limit is more about the size of my drawing table and reach of my T square.  Yes I actually DRAW plans,  not CAD them.

Dave

Do you have a Sterling T Square?

[944_Jim]

If.you have a printer at home, cheat with bigger plans...use the tile or poster feature in your print driver to print the plan. It helps to turn on "print-preview" in your driver. I like 1/4" overlap tick marks and trim with straight edge and razor the upper layer paper to sit the cut off tick mark to the underlying page's tick mark. Then adjust your Acrobat or Reader to zoom in on details you want on one or two pages...select under custom page options to print 100% size of the item on the screen. Look for printing "current view" which should auto-size the image on the screen to output to 100% size. I recommend going to Outerzone to find a small 1/2A ship for practicing. I think the DMECO All American Jr (26" WS) prints full size across 8 letter sheets. I seem to remember the Larry Scarinzi Queen Bee does the job on two legal sheets. The 1/2A Scientific P-40 (built up wing, profile fuselage #SCI-192) prints on four. That one comes with full size parts tracings and a full size top view (two legal pages if I remember correctly). You're cooking with gas if you tile print the top view 100%, print ribs at 100%, and can lay the paper ribs in place to your sense of validation...same for the wingtips.
Each of the Adobe products has a point to point measuring tool. A quick measure of critical dimensions on the screen should be pretty close to the same value on your paper copy. With big planes (small planes for most of you guys), I find it helpful to extract the fuselage, ribs, wingtips, and tail feathers. I build wings on jigs, so I use the measuring tool in Adobe to set up the jig.

[944_Jim]

Oh, one more thing...if you have Adobe Acrobat (I don't think this works in the Reader-version), do the crop thing to split  and save the file by re-naming into two new overlapping half files. This is to create two long and narrower prints for your copy company. Of course, their ability to work with your work is only as good as the operator.

My local Office Depot charged $10 per sheet, but could never guarantee their work. I told them they could try on their dime, and make money on my job if it worked out ok.  I always carried in one full size part printed at home for proofing. They ate quite a few jobs under that agreement. Their big advantage was they don't know how to read plans...not.even for copyright info.

Conversely, the local professional copy center charged $20 to scan and email a large plan, and proofed the plan by printing only a rib full size from their digital copy and placing it on my original...one large scan, one small proof and they earned my money and respect. However we, they know how to read all sorts of plans and CAn recognize copyright info...and they were sticklers about it. No way would/could the Office Depot clerk pull-off "once and done, proofed" let alone a copyright check.

[Marty Hammersmith]

Of course, their ability to work with your work is only as good as the operator. My local Office Depot charged $10 per sheet, but could never guarantee their work. I told them they could try on their dime, and make money on my job if it worked out ok.  I always carried in one full size part printed at home for proofing. They ate quite a few jobs under that agreement. Their big advantage was they don't know how to read plans...not.even for copyright info.

I hope you'll forgive the selective edit of the above quote just to save some time.

My problem with the Staples store is the operator. As you say, I am at "their" mercy. It's a guy who I think is trying to be non-binary so it starts out weird and doesn't get any better. They even printed a blank 2nd page and charged me $8 for the privilege. I didn't catch it until I left the store and it wasn't worth going back. Trying to talk to this person is like trying to talk to the wall and expecting an answer. So, I had to come here to ask about longer than 48" plans. I'm going to go check out Kinkos. Thanks for the help guys!