Time well spent

Remember how I said I was manually entering all the drawings from my plans into CAD?  I've completed most everything and very happy about what I've learned.

I spent several hours trying to figure out how I'm going to print these items to scale for templates which will be used to trace out my aluminum parts.  It's a careful balance trying to print the items to scale and within the borders of what a printer will print on a 8.5 x 11 sheet of card stock.  I haven't decided yet if the card stock will be sturdy enough, or that I might transfer the patterns from card stock to a light gauge aluminum like an eaves trough flashing.  This will be particularly important on multiple pieces where repeatable results are key.

LibreCad is the free program I used to digitize my plans, but like anything free it has some drawbacks such as a limited ability to print to scale right from the program.  It does however export to PDF.  There doesn't however seem to be any rhyme or reason to what scale the drawing end up in when exported.

To solve this problem, I found an online program that takes DXF files (the LibraCad file type) and converts them to PDF.  It automatically scales them to the best size paper, not 1:1 scale (which I need).

I figured out however, that if I print the PDFs as is and hand measure them, I can calculate the scale percentage I need to up or down scale the PDF.  The it's just a matter of entering that percentage in the final print and voila!  32 Perfectly scaled 1:1 drawings printed direct to card stock!

I'll be limited to those templates that fit on letter or legal card stock for now.  Most of the larger parts are strait cuts anyhow.  I'm more concerned with the complex curves of nose and wing ribs and some of the smaller parts.  Maybe I'll do some research and see what size I can get card stock I can get.

The other item I've been trying to determine is the specs on my Corvair crankshaft.  I've mentioned before it will need to be magnaflux tested for cracks, heat treated (nitride) for strength and the rod journals ground for bigger should radii. I happy to see the crank I have is within a couple of thousandths of stock meaning there is lots to room to have it ground properly.

Progress.  Back into the shop I go!