[TheForge] How do you do this?

[Jay Hayes]

Harry,

The next step better than printing out a bunch of "tiles" and taping them
together is using a plotter to draw out a full size pattern. My plotter draws on
paper off a roll so the pattern can be almost any length. We typically try to
keep our patterns less than twelve feet long but we've done some well over
twenty feet. For wide patterns the plotter program can break the design up into
strips that are then plotted out with registration marks.

Most sign shops should be able to do this for you. You just need to find out
what file formats they use.

Jay Hayes

H and P Foster wrote:

> What I'm asking is what do folks do to bring their little sketches on scraps
> of paper up to a point where the size is life size and you have a good
> pattern to work by in the shop.
>
> I have up to now redone my sketches onto graph paper and when happy with the
> proportions etc, got out the large brown paper, drew many larger squares and
> then redrew the smaller drawing onto the larger paper.  This works ok, but
> is time consuming to say the least.
>
> Now I have found that I can scan the refined sketch on graph paper, bring
> the size up to what you want the finished product to be and save that file.
> Then open it in a program like Adobe Illustrator, which gives you the
> ability to do tile printing of your file, no matter what the size, and then
> one just joins and tapes together all the pages for your working shop
> drawing.
>
> I'm sure there are other ways to do this, and with other programs, and that
> is what I would like to know.
>
> Harry
> Rusty Dog Forge
> Pontiac, Quebec,  and not nearly so cold.
>
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