How to Modify, Scale, and Reformat FT Plans

by evp | March 10, 2015 | (27) Posted in Tips

Flite Test puts out some amazing plans that can keep scratch builders busy for years. I’ve loved printing out the plans, taping them up, cutting out the foam and putting together the whole thing. In fact, it’s about as much fun to me as actually going out and flying the end result.

But sometimes the process of cutting out and taping together the plans becomes more frustrating than fun. In this article and the video, I try to bring together the tips and techniques that I’ve learned that have helped me put together these plans faster and easier. At the end, I also cover how the same techniques can be used to modify or scale any of the Flite Test plans to whatever size you like or change them in basically any way you like. This is really handy whether you want to scale an FT design up or down, or if you prefer printing in a large format specifically for laying on Dollar Tree Foam Board sheets.

I recommend watching the video over on YouTube itself, in at least 720p, and as full screen as possible, as I didn't anticipate how faint the lines for the plans would appear.



My first build was the FT Flyer. I printed out the full-sized plans using the poster format in Adobe Reader. There were some frustrating parts in the cutting and taping, but the Flyer was simple enough that it wasn’t too big a deal to me, and I pressed on. But when I decided to build the FT Spitfire, the larger size and the increased complexity meant that all the frustrating parts would be multiplied.

Looking like a frustating time of cutting and taping


I decided to see what I could do to make things easier for myself and remembered Josh Bixler saying at some point that he put together his plans in Corel, a vector graphics editing software package. Usually, if you make something with a vector graphics editor, it can be easily edited with another vector graphics editor. I downloaded Inkscape, a free vector graphics editor, and started messing around with the FT Spitfire plans.


I found that I could reformat, scale, and otherwise modify the plans pretty much in any way I wanted. So instead of being restricted to the plans as provided, I could pack all the parts in much more densely, saving on paper, taping, and hopefully avoiding all the annoying cuts. And it worked well for many of the small pieces, that would fit on one or two pages. But with the larger pieces, Adobe was still adding extra margin and making it impossible to use the cut lines I wanted, and it was impossible to change the poster printing settings.

 

At that point, I discovered Mindcad Tiler, a PDF tiling program that allows great control over the printing large PDF files in a tiled poster format. It is Mac-only as far as I’m aware, and $4.99 on the App Store, but well worth it. The results are almost exactly the same as from Adobe reader, except that you get to choose the orientation of the layout, and exactly how many sheets you want it to print over.

Much better results using Inkscape and Mindcad Tiler together


Between Inkscape and Mindcad Tiler, I was able to reduce the number of 8.5x11 sheets I had to print by about half (from 32 to around 16), put the cut lines in much more convenient places, and really brought down the time and frustration involved in putting together the plans, so I could get on to cutting foam and building the plane.

The video tutorial is long and involved, but steps through the entire process of bringing the FT Mini Scout from 16 sheets (if printed from the standard plans) to 5 sheets, with only 3 pieces going across more than one sheet, and only 1 cut through each of them. The techniques from that process can be applied to any Flite Test plan, and really any plan that was put together using vector graphics software. The video also briefly covers how you can use Inkscape to scale any design up or down. Want an 80% FT Spitfire? Or a 200% FT Scout? Use Inkscape to easily scale the design and then lay it out in whatever format you like. Want to compact as much as possible into a layout for putting directly on a sheet of foam board? Use Inkscape to reformat the plans on a new PDF layout, save the file on a thumb drive, and bring it to Kinko’s (and lighten the load on nerdnic’s plate!).

Original FT Mini Scout plans printed out


Modifying and condensing the plans in Inkscape


The simple and neat end result


I hope this is helpful, please feel free to ask questions, make comments or corrections, or add your tips about what makes scratch builds easier for you.

I do want to give a shout out to nerdnic, first for being a generally awesome example of a community member contributing generally awesome stuff, but also for the idea of light jazzy music as the background to a tutorial like this, I think it’s so much better than just hearing my voice drone on for an hour.

COMMENTS

llebreknit1 on March 11, 2015
Great Video...unfortunately I'm a PC guy but learned a few things. In addition to your video, I'll ADD that on some printers you can change the paper size to custom for printing seamless sheets.
What do I mean...well...in adobe photoshop CS6 (at least what I'm using in this case) I can pick and choose to create a new template and fit items within my printable area. My printer is a Canon MX320 and it allows a custom paper size up to 8.50in X 26.61in. So, I just pick and choose the parts I want to fit on an 8.50in X 22.00 (2- regular letter sheet of paper taped together prior to printing) and print using the custom 8.50x22.00in setting. Works great for the long pieces and saves cutting and trying to match up the parts after printing. Only downfall is you have to tape the two pieces of paper end to end with semi accuracy using a transparent tape on the 'non printed side.' (pretty easy though) It has fed quite well and just have to guide the paper as it feeds but once the 'seam' hits the guide section for the paper no worries. Hope this helps as I wish I could print 8.50x33in. Just my 2 cents. Great write-up though!!.
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evp on March 12, 2015
Yeah thanks for the tip! That's a nice little hack I never would have thought of, need to see if my printer will support that paper size and give it a try
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llebreknit1 on March 17, 2015
I actually just submitted an in depth article with lots of pictures and videos how I achieve it. I've been using the technique about 8 months and works fantastic and in conjunction with EVP article it would be a slick paper saving and accuracy technique. I think most printers can get away with 22inches and mine is three years old. Hopefully the article will be accepted and props to EVP again!
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llebreknit1 on March 11, 2015
For example the last picture "EVP" posted of the mini scout. Tape the two sheets of paper together (far left of the fuselage) and run it through the printer and you don't have to match anything up.
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makinger on March 12, 2015
OMG! That is an awesome addition to what the article already says! big up!
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ZackB on March 14, 2015
Could you make your condensed pdfs available for download?
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Gravitysucks on March 11, 2015
Excellent !

Been down the same road with printing the Versa Wing. Juggling with Preview and Adobe and what not. Took some printouts before I found out my little Samsung ML-2165 laser didn't align the papers correctly so everything was printer with a little tilt :( Switching over to my ink jet printer cured that problem though.

I'll definitely try your method of compacting the printouts next time unless the FT team can provide a 'condensed' version to download :D
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Madpco on March 17, 2015
Hello , I've been printing these using the followint technique:
1 - Convert PDF file to DWG (autocad) using "Aide PDF to DWG Converter" works brilliantly because the pdf's are vector based
2 - Edit using cad program of your choice, fix scale using the ruler on the plans --> that way you are perfectly to scale with originals
3 - Take your cad file to a print shop that does 24inch plan printing (inkjet or laser, not blueprint) it will cost you only a few dollars
4 - lay the paper flat and face down , Use roll-on type glue closely around the shapes to cut on the backside of the paper, then apply the foamboard over the flat paper - dont put glue inside the 'good' parts as it will damage the surface when you lift the paper - I LOVE "3m Scotch Adhesive Dot Roller" and highly recommend it compared to other brands .. I tried many

5 - cut and build

Notes: Draw corner marks exactly where you want the foamboard to be on your layout, that way when you apply the board over the paper, it eliminates the guesswork for centering.

Any questions , please ask away!
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08trdoffroad on March 13, 2015
Does anyone know of a PC equivalent program to the Mindcad Tiler? Unfortunately, I use a PC at home and work and cannot find a program to do the final re-sizing and printing portion. I have figured out the Inkscape portion, but can't finish printing my PDF's without a secondary program to condense it down to fewer pages.
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evp on March 13, 2015
I really briefly mention the PDF Tiler from Noliturbare available here: http://www.noliturbare.com/pdf-tools/pdf-tiler. I believe it's free but I'm not sure, and I haven't been able to use it, just saw it mentioned on RC Groups. There are more possibilities listed here: http://alternativeto.net/software/mindcad-tiler/?platform=windows, though again, I haven't tried any of them and so I can't vouch for them.

If you do find something that works, please let me know here and I'll update the article so that everyone else can benefit!
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grackle on March 21, 2015
Good article, great video. Maybe adding a bit of Inkscape tutorial to the article would be nice, as well, just about 'ungrouping,' then selecting bits, copying, pasting as desired, etc. Not too much. Still, article+video=exactly what we need. Awesome!
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mohammed jaffer on March 30, 2015
Thank you very much. I have learnt quite alot from your post. GL and look forward to more. Best wished.
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maximaal on March 11, 2015
Great article very useful thanks
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mohammed jaffer on March 16, 2015
I cant thank you enough for the great tutorial. Made my life alot easier. GL and look forward to more.
Best regards
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Topdawg2881 on March 14, 2015
Hey EVP, great write up!!! This helps tremendously, as I am a big fan of printing wings wheels and such only once, and than tracing them onto DT Foam Board for cutout. So this helps also with the rearranging. A couple things that might help. In the document properties on Inkscape, when you change the properties to inches from pixels, the third tab over is one labeled grids. In that grids tab you can set up a grid of 8.5" x 11" for easy paper size instead of doing another layer. This helped me alot with the Versa as I could not fit it onto two sheets top to bottom, had to go with four. So the grid was able to give me the lines for all four sheets, and as it is just a grid reference you don't have to worry about accidentally saving it with the layer turned on. I am also working with PDF Tiler to get the right settings so when they are sent over to adobe the overlap and printing work with the my printers margins. Trust me the program you are using is a whole lot easier!! However, us PC people don't have that luxury :( I will try and update you with the settings that work so maybe you can throw it into your article. Thanks again for the tutorial!!

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makinger on March 12, 2015
Great video!
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guruji on April 1, 2015
Today I tried to replicate an rc plane on this site and noticed that my foam is much softer than you guys are using. I still kept going on this type. I will re inforce it with plastic and glue.
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nerdnic on March 17, 2015
Awesome article! There is a big need for this in the community and I'm glad you are willing to help.
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Thorsclaw on March 11, 2015
A simple trick is to use the "snapshot" tool in adobe reader click on the "edit" tab then "snapshot" this will allow you to draw a box around what you want to print on most of the FT plans this can reduce the white space around the parts that would otherwise take up space on the page. Also sometimes it is worth going to Kinkos or some other place and printing the full size plans most of the time the cost is only 15 to 20 dollars and the plans can always be re-used.
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evp on March 12, 2015
That's definitely better than just printing out the full size plans as they come on 8.5x11. For me though, you still have the possibility of weird cut lines and such, which is why the PDF tiling helps me so much. I will say, at some point I may just bite the bullet and print them off at Kinkos
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Madpco on March 17, 2015
USE Roll-on Glue !! instead of tape
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Damig on August 22, 2015
Question: I rpinted out plans for FT Storch at the printers and filled them to 30x20, and they were small. If I enlarge them so that the scale on the print equals the scale (6 inches is the 6 inches). the ST Spitfire ones turned out perfect.
yes, easy I am sure, but latin to me...
=mig=
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tommy_mental on February 16, 2017
Thank you so much for taking the time to make this! I am using 6 mm depron for my builds and I've always wanted to resize the plans accordingly so that pieces fit together with less hassle. Not that I didn't make modifications as I went, but knowing I've looked at the plans and changed the things I like (and also maybe decals) so they fit the best way possible is an awesome trick to have in the arsenal!

Kudos!
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OpenAir on August 24, 2017
Very Nice! Second of two articles that forced me to register an account on here after lurking for a LONG time. Thank you again...and as I get more "expierence" with the computer editing and plans side of things this write up will definately come in Very Handy! Thank again!
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How to Modify, Scale, and Reformat FT Plans