Bingo, the Z wouldn't really apply for the 2D drawing. When you do the side view of the fuselage, Y on the drawing is Z in a 3D world, IE height.

While on the subject of the rullers, a border line around the drawing is also a good tool. This picks up skew in the feed quicker than the rullers will. The rullers will tell you the sizing is correct, the lines will tell you that it printed straight.

My first plane that I had built in 35 years was from a set of Magazine fulsize plans. I purchased a roll of velimum and traced the plans into a set I could work with. I couldn't bring myself to gluing on these plans so I took them to the local blueprint shop. They coppied them to get the smallest Sq ft of drawing and I was happy. That was until I got home and discovered that one end of the wing pannels had skewed, either on the copy or on the print. It wasn't so bad that I couldn't work around it, but that convinced me to put some tell tails on the drawing to make sure all was right.

This was three years ago last January. I built the plane right away, but it sat idle until I gathered up enough skill and confidance to give it a try. I had two mishaps with the plane. With the first, the radio quit listening on take off and then suddenly turned back on just in time to kill the engine, go airborne and then land in the pond behind our field. I just got it rebuilt about a month back and a couple weeks back the RX battery opened up. I watched the plane do lazy circles for several minutes before it crashed int the brim around the pond. The wing was damaged beyond repair, the the fuselage is fine other than some torn covering.

I spent the last couple days getting the wing into a CAD drawing. I mentioned before that I have a Epson Printer that will take roll paper and can print up to 129" in length. I printed out a set of ribs and the main spar this morning. Then I found I didn't have the right size balsa, so I changed the rib pattern from 3"x36 sheet to 4x36" I found that I could squeeze a fourth rib onto a sheet. I printed out my new rib set, four sheets of balsa for ribs and two for the main spar. 3M77 adheasiveed them and stuck them on the balsa. Off to the band saw and rough cut the ribs, to the disk sander and sanded to the fine line of the print. Hand sand the bunch lightly to get all exactly the same. This whole process took me just under three hours. So much faster than my first one where I made a template, then cut ribs from it. Rough aligned and pined the bunch together and sanded and sanded and sanded to get them the same. I must have been close to 1/4" off in height compaired to the plans when I finished the first time. Today, there was less than 0.0101" differences. A quick light sanding with 280 on a board put them all the same.

If you take a drawing and convert it to PDF format, don't add line width to the drawing. My Rhino 3D drawings have no width to the lines, and when printed give me a line just a couple thousandths wide on the paper. Next best thing to a laser cutter. The line on paper is narrow enough that a razor blade takes it out if it cut on the center of the line.

I've got a couple sticks to cut, $200 worth of balsa from Lone Star Balsa just a month before their fire and I don't have the sizes I need. At least I have pieces I can rip to size. I may have the wing less ailerons assembled tomorrow night.

If I had time, I would build me a CNC router capable of handeling a 12" x 48" piece and then Straight from the drawing to the finished pieces. I've got just about all the hardware, but not the time to build it, unless I stop flying for several months. Naw, won't do that.

Don