Hazy Lazy Humpday Triviola

WAG

On a scale of 1 to 12, you probably took different college classes than your builder.

Nope.

Re: Hazy Lazy Humpday Triviola

After all the time spent drawing it to scale the prints were scaled and distorted?

Are carpenters not American?

Is that an Imperial-istic question?

On the right track.

Serving as today's hint, this answer is close to correct.

Tommy

Re: Hazy Lazy Humpday Triviola

You say you drafted exactly to scale but don't say you included written dimensions on drawings. Just another WAG.

Re: Hazy Lazy Humpday Triviola

Your contractor is pre-supposing the "to scale" drawings reproduced accuratly. Depending on method of reproduction, there could be registration problems (pieces of paper moving relative to each other during processing), scaling problems (in xerography scanning, the scanners are seldom accurately one to one on either axis of scan), and in situations where the paper originals are moving past the scanner, one side could move a teensy bit faster than the other (dirt on wheels, or wheels of microscopically different sizes) resulting in distortion. Any of these can lead to inaccuracies in the reproduced drawings. Finally, your contractor's scale isn't your scale, and tiny differences can accumulate.

Reproduced drawings are, at best, a fairly good "to scale" representation. An accurate set of dimensions on the plans will be far more helpful in reproducing the drawings into something solid.

Fred

Under scattered clouds in Eastern Missouri

Re: On the right track.

All of the prints that come out of our drafting have a specific note not to scale from the drawing.

Besides

When In went to archetecture class many years ago I was told not to scale from the prints because the paper would shrink after being copied onto.

Re: Hazy Lazy Humpday Triviola

Paper, including blueprint paper, is made from wood (plant) fibers. Paper, unless handmade, has a grain direction and shrinks and expands across the grain ...

Answer!

We'll award triviola points to multiple good answers here. Reproductions of scaled drawings are rarely accurate after the reproduction process. Blueprints in particular are known to shrink as the paper is exposed to ammonia.

The only accurate way to know a dimension is to go by the written dimensions. If the prints lack the needed dimension it is better to ask! Sets of blueprints can be huge and most of the time the dimensions are given on separate detail pages. Better to take the time to look for them than to scale from a plan and assume the scaled dimension is accurate. That's a first class ticket to building a wall in the wrong place!

Thanks for all the great answers!

Tommy

Re: Answer!

Not the same cause, but that reminds me of an experience of a friend of mine. He was a retired surveyor and was convinced to come out of retirement to replace another surveyor that the contractor was having some problems with. This job was to build a 10 story office building and it had the foundation set and poured. The first thing that my friend did was to take a site survey to get his bearings. After he did that, the first thing that he did was to get another surveyor friend of his in to get a second opinion. The foundation was oriented incorrectly and too far in one direction. They talked to the city inspectors, but in the end, they had to dig up the foundation and move it. Can you imagine the effort to move a completed foundation for a 10 story building? That had to be a difficult conversation to have with the contractor, even though it was not his fault. "You need me to do WHAT?"