ALLISONMO2:

I preferr to use the terminology that the equipment manufacturer uses. Per Calcomp advertisement, they invented the computer plotter back about 1959, well before thought was given to cutting vinyl. If you go to their site today, or that of H-P, or OCE' etc., they all use the term plotter someplace in their descriptions of product. Those who cut vinyl or laser cut wood, refer to the equipment as being a cutter, not a plotter. They often operate on plotter language, or CNC language, but a few also operate on raster printer language. When the "large format" inkets, and the piezo came around in the 1980's, they were still referred to as plotters. I think you need to take it up with the aides at T.M.S and other repairmen over at Lorand like Ralph McGranahan and tell them they have been using the wrong terminology for the past thirty years.

Back in about 1969, a fellow I worked asside was going through the complicated calculation efforts to print on wood. He was interested in Cleveland kits. During lunch hour and evenings he did all the math, then cut the paper recording tape. He taped the simple sheets of wood to a flatbed plotter and blue ink plotted the lines onto each. I don't remember much beyond that other than it took him the whole lunch hour to calculate the necessary points for one part to be plotted out. Sort of wish I had that flatbed plotter today though.

GUARDIAN:

Most of my work with plotters at present is driven through Autocad. You can set up most any printer/plotter in Windows and call as a default. I set up the Micrografx to call up the plotter for the work noted. We were working in Windows 98 at the time using an H-P 650c on individual sheet feed mode. I could go to Autocad and call up the H-P and it too ran off the desired linework. The thing with Micrografx was that it was easier to hand draw the lines, as compared to Autocad. The two systems did not share the same text fonts though. Also with my 25 year old PLOTTER, I am able to load up any color of ink needed for the project. White always goes down first, and made sure it is dry before next color goes on. I have to batch up the colors which I get from Koh-i-noor to get different tints.

Moreover what you need to do is to decide which font best matches the appearances. I had been doing printing on yellow Monocoat for an Army Stearman trainer in Romand as it best matched what I saw at Chino. Just do the work in a graphics program, then run a common used blueprint paper through the plotter for testing alignment of everything, and then run the Monocoat through under enhansed mode. This ain't fast to learn, but does work.

I also once did some reverse printing onto some Britain's straight blue gummed decal paper like they use at Microscale. The image on the paper was then cut to approximate size and taped to the model. I wetted the paper slightly, let dry overnight. Next day I wetted it again, and slid the paper off, leaving the lettering etc. Absolutely no decal film nor discolorization was left. The work looked as though it was stenciled on. It took numerous tries to get to work, but once figured out, it worked well. I don't have any of the paper anymore, or I would do more of it. I would have to order 1-2 reams of it now. I know I am going to get some reader mentioning that I could get one or two sheets of decal paper at some place, however this material is unlike what is sold over the counter today. This routine would work well if you wanted to apply tiny stenciling to helicopter rotor blades.



Wm.