Does anyone know how to change a hand drawing to a useful scale for blades

M

M/S Blacksmithing

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Jul 21, 2016
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I am in having a problem. Can someone please help me. What I am trying to do is use an drawn image from the net. I need to convert this template to inches so when I print it it will be a scale template. So I am able to use it for a stock removal piece I am interested in.
Thanks in advance for the help.
Martin Moldovan
 
You can copy and paste it into a cad program and scale it accordingly. If I have a drawing, I'll typically import it into autoCAD and either trace over the picture in CAD, or make a reference line at the length or width I need and scale the drawing to match accordingly. You can then print to a 1:1 scale and have it print to those dimensions. Just make sure your CAD is set for inches if you need inches, or millimeters if you need millimeters.
 
Rough way to do it would be print the picture and scale it up on a Xerox machine. The problem in that is you have to have a dead straight on picture or you're just enlarging skewed angles and lines.
 
I have done that with a rifle stock I wanted to build. I had a picture that noted the length of pull so I just had a printing place keep upscaling it till the LOP of the pic equalled the data given and used that as the pattern profile. You could do the same thing with the knife given any of the measurements.
 
If the knife OAL is less than 10" this works simple:
Open Word or any drawing program. Put orientation in landscape format. Copy or scan the drawing into it. Grab the corner and pull the knife out until it is the desired OAL. Pull the corner up or down to make the heighth/width correct. Save and Print image.

If the knife is longer than 10" but less than around 18", do the same thing, but make two images. One of the blade only and one of the handle. Tape them together.
 
knife to a gunfight said:
You can copy and paste it into a cad program and scale it accordingly. If I have a drawing, I'll typically import it into autoCAD and either trace over the picture in CAD, or make a reference line at the length or width I need and scale the drawing to match accordingly. You can then print to a 1:1 scale and have it print to those dimensions. Just make sure your CAD is set for inches if you need inches, or millimeters if you need millimeters.
Click to expand...

This is what I'd do and what I've done
 
There are free CAD softwares available such as draftsight that work well for that - there are some tutorials on youtube on using reference images on the software.
 
1. Print image as-is (be sure to set the printing scale to 100% or take note of the printing scale).
2. Measure the overall length as printed.
3. Determine your enlargement factor. Factor = desired length / measured printed length.
4. Reprint at new scale (do this directly in the printing software, or enlarge the photo in a photo editing app).

Example with direct printing scale control:
You print the image, measure the printed length as 6.1". You want it to be 9.8", so the enlargement factor is 1.606. Reprint at 160.6%.

Example with photo editing app enlargement:
You print the image, measure the printed length as 6.1". You want it to be 9.8", so the enlargement factor is 1.606. Open photo in editing app. Observe original photo pixel size (or inch size). If the original size is 580 pixels, resize it to 931 pixels (580 x 1.606).
 
This is a big reason I do my drawings to scale. Then I just copy and cut it out. Like Stacy said some blades are longer then what fits on a sheet of paper so I do a blade copy and a handle copy.
 
I draw mine up using Adobe Illustrator on the computer, I can save it in many different formats, just in case I need that option or i just print them out to use as a pattern. You can do them scale that way too.
 
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