What im doing wrong?? everytime i print the outline with one of these softwares it comes out suck! not close to what it should be. in board cad the gridline dosent even make sense !
im using a starnd print HP 2050A and A4 papers…somthing about the setting? margains? what should i do? and please to tell me use blending curves…
CAD programs do what you tell them to do.
For printing, I use Boardcad because it has the grids to aid in alignment. I set my page margins for .25". I get exactly the dimensions I put in. One thing I don’t do is print from Boardcad to PDF before printing from PDF to the printer. I print directly from Boardcad to the printer. When printing from a PDF you may have to adjust the scaling so that what your pdf puts out is the same size as what your printer puts out.
Gdaddy’s advice makes good sense to me. Although I personally am still struggling with AKU and have yet to even visit boardcad. Any of you guys ever thought about doing a class in your area or regionally and charging a fee for the tutorial?? I would think that if you were in the right area you could draw enough participants for a Saturday class. Say OC or San Diego?? Maybe conduct it in a computer lab at a JC or library?? Pay for computer time and a fee for the class???
i dont even how to open it in pdf…can you explain please?
gdaddy, you put 0.25 inch margain at all four? (left,right,top,bottom) hope it was more simple to me…
EDIT: Half success, I create the PDF OUTLINE file using the template hollow board maker and now I only need to know how to print it corectlly, im using a4 paper and i cant change the margins… plus i dont know how to print the all files
some photos :
Hi Idan, did you try the ‘Poster’ button in the Adobe print window yet? That will give you options for scale, cut marks, and overlap. It looks like you are really close to getting it to work. -J
SUCCESSֱ! I choosed the poster option…play with a little bit, print it, put it all togheter and measure to make sure it right, came out great 
I hope that in the future I will be able to print right off the boardCAD programm, but its good for now
To print full sized templates, rather than pasting small sections, and hoping it came out right, There is another way. Print it as a PDF. Then either get a large format printer, probably not worth the money because they cost a thousand, or send it out to pe printed. In my area Tri County Blueprint. http://www.tricoblue.com/. You down load it to their website, and then you get a full sized page with the drawing on it. Every city has a blueprint printer than can do it for you. Just google it. Even if they are a distance from you, thay can mail it to you.
Nice! thanks for the tip.
do you converte your outline file the same why i did ?using that hollow board maker ?
I sell commercial wide format printing equipment for a living and my company also has two locations that do the printing for the public. I’m lucky to have the equipment, software and knowhow to manipulate and print templates as needed. Using full size PDFs I have the ability using a software called PlotBase to manipulate the X and Y axis when I print. As some know I’ve made quite a few boards using templates from Blending Curves. What I’ve done with them is use In-Design to re-assemble his 8.5 x 11 PDFs into full size PDFs. Then I scale the PDFs using my software to the length and width I desire before printing. For example, me being 6’1 and 210 pounds there really aren’t templates on there to fit me so I may take one of his templates that yields a 60 inch long board that is 18 inches wide and I might use my software to stretch and pull that template into a template that yields a board 77 inches long and 22 3/4 wide. Since I’m not making multiple boards off the same template it makes no sense for me to make traditional templates to use over and over. I just save the files and If I ever need them to remake a magic board I can reprint them.
I am glad it worked for you Idan. Sometimes I do what ES says and use a large format printer (we have them at work), more often I just make a spin template that takes a few sheets of paper at home and tape them together using a straightedge or ruler to make sure they are straight. My other trick is to tape the pieces to a glass patio door (poor man’s carbon neutral light table) and check the tape job for accuracy before cutting the template out with a scissors.
All the pros are free to ignore this one cause this is strictly backyard…
If I did a lot of templates I’d buy an inexpensive printer that would print as a banner on continuous feed paper. But since I already have a printer for my day job I use that. As a backyard hack I use another method - it’s really only suitable for 1-time use templates. If you reuse templates then I think it’s better to do them in masonite:
I cut a length of construction paper that comes on the 30" rolls
Fold it in half - lengthwise. Get a straight crease in there.
Open it up and spritz the edge of one half on the inside with spray adhesive so that when I close it back up the two halves stick together. I more or less spritz where I think the outer template line will hit. Now I have the construction-paper equivalent of a 15" wide piece of masonite.
Spritz the outside of one side with spray adhesive - you only need enough to make it tacky, particularly at the crease, which will become your stringer line
Print in Boardcad to get the grid - that will help you line the pieces up regardless of how straight your printer feeds the paper. The bottom line of the grid goes at the crease.
After the pages are all tacked down run a line of masking tape at the outer edge - you’ll still be able to see the line of your template through the tape. Because I’ve got more time than common sense I also tape the edge of each of the pages down so they won’t move. But that’s really a redundant effort.
Cut the template out with a razor or scissors and open the two halves up. For better or worse both halves will be the same. If you’re halfway decent with the CAD software in getting the curves you want then the computer will draw a cleaner curve than what you would get with he conventional method.
You can spritz the inside with a little more spray adhesive so it will stick to your blank when you lay it down. You only ever need just a little bit - enough to make it a little tacky.
The process takes maybe 15 minutes from start to finish, which is way faster than making a reusable masonite template. It’s way faster and cheaper than taking a pdf to the copy shop, too; and you won’t be bummed if you go to the effort only to find out you don’t like the shape.
Again - this is really only suitable for the one-off templates you would use. If you resuse templates and like to mix-n-match then doing them in masonite makes more sense for that.
By the way, if you are sending out to a blueprint shop to get full sized templates, you can get them printed on mylar film and they will be much more durrable. Its a bit more money but worth it. Most blueprint shops will also have a laminator. Again, more money but if you want them to be re-usable it might be worth your while.
Hi idan1500,
I printed spin template outline using boardcad and stick the papers together. I made an outline for a 6’2" board but the paper outline comes our only 6’0". Can you please share what setting you used on the poster function. I tried but still comes out the same. Thanks. Milan
Hi Milian,
That was 3 years ago,
Today the best method that I found is to design your outline as normal then convert it to pdf using the program ‘hollowboard templatemaker’, then you have half-side outline of the board (i never used spin template, always this kind of template then flipping it to the otherside)
You can print it in the adobe program using poster mode but then you need you cut each piece and glue it togheter which is ton of work. My advice here is to send the pdf file to one of your printing house nearbay, here its only cost about 4$. Then you will recived it one piece on paper and then just cut it and make draw it on your tempalte matriael.
Good luck
Hi Milan, there is a function in BoardCAD to ‘print over curve’ and ‘print grid’ when making an outline or spin template print.
Below is a test, BoardCAD 6’2" standard shortboard scaled to 10" long and printed with ‘grid’ and ‘over curve’
It drew the shape but left the last little bit for me to fill in with red (see red arrows).
You can try this yourself to get a feel for how it works.
Thanks jrandy,
I was at it for 4 hours and finally figured it out. The problem was page size selection. I was using letter size.
From boarcad, i chose A4 to print to pdf and from acrobat reader i chose A4 again to print to printer. Poster function was not required. Just print to actual size did the trick. Boardcad manual says that the grid squares shoud be 1 inch but before i chose A4, it was 31/32 roughly. A4 size works because tge definition of A4 dimensions set in the computer is actually to my paper size. Letter dimensions are a little bigger.
