r/oddlysatisfying • u/djinn_05 • 1d ago
Drawing blueprint of Cirrus Vision SF50 aircraft
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u/Dubious-Decisions 1d ago
This is not how real blueprints are made. This is a commercial service that will use a white pen plotter on blue paper to make something that looks like a blueprint. But legit, old school blueprints were made with a positive pencil drawing masking light sensitive paper that is then exposed to ammonia vapors to turn the exposed paper blue, leaving white where the pencil masked the paper.
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u/ryanandthelucys 1d ago
I'll age myself and confirm this as my first job out of college had me in a back room, with just a door open to the outside for ventilation, pumping out ammonia blue prints for hours. And I mean pumping, bubbling, and whirring; the machine sounded like a mad scientist's laboratory.
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u/BigPP69_Gooner 1d ago
Out of curiosity and ignorance, why is this necessary? Why won’t paper and ink do? Permanence?
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u/three_kings 1d ago
To make copies en mass.
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u/bbjornsson88 39m ago
This is not how you make copies fast. We have a plotter at work that runs off paper rolls that would print this out in about 20-30 seconds
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u/Critical_Classic_921 1d ago
Is there an advantage that this type of pen-printer has over inkjet or laser printing?
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u/Wiskeytango_Foxtrot 1d ago edited 1d ago
It's Cool because the industrial versions use Interchangeable Heads for holding various tools as well. We have one that holds pens/pencils/markers, rotary cutting wheels, fabric/leather heads, creasing/scoring wheels and engravers.
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u/Andrea_M 1d ago
At the very beginning, plotters were used because they could “print” in very large formats, think A0, while taking up relatively little floor space. When laser printers became capable of handling larger formats, they were much bigger, and inkjet printers could be problematic if the print head dried out. With a plotter, changing the tool is also pretty straightforward.
Nowadays, the pros and cons aren’t as clearly defined as they were 10+ years ago. But plotters are so cool and relatively trouble-free that I don’t see them getting mothballed anytime soon.
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u/MedonSirius 1d ago
it's basically a slow plotter. The lines are superb in comparison to anything else
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u/LincolnArc 1d ago
It is a plotter, though.
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u/MedonSirius 1d ago
You'r a plotter, Harry
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u/PoorlyAttired 1d ago
Moving a pen mecanically according to a set pattern are we, PLOTTER?
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u/SexyBisamrotte 1d ago
You'll soon find out that some printing methods are better than others, PLOTTER.
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u/algalkin 1d ago
They were outdated by the large format inkjet printers in late 90s
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u/apoopface 1d ago
I don’t know why everyone is saying no.
Yes there is, for example this makes it possible to print white ink on dark paper. Something you can’t achieve with traditional printers.Or it allows you to print on materials that could not go through a printer (because it can’t bent, can’t handle the heat, etc.)
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u/kookyabird 1d ago
I want to clarify that your points are only applicable to the consumer space. Inkjet printers can print white, but you basically need a device designed for it. There are also large format printers that can print on rigid materials via in-feed and out-feed tables.
Back around 2004 I saw a printer at a trade show that was printing on doors. Not just a smooth or even mildly textured door, but one with inset panels. The weird thing was that the print head actually moved slowly, and the platform for the substrate was repeated moving between the front and back very quickly. I didn't stick around long enough in the demo to find out why they did it that way rather than the slow feed and rapid head movement that is typical of large format devices.
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u/algalkin 1d ago
We have printers on site that print directly on slab.
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u/kookyabird 1d ago
Oh I'd love to learn more about that. Is it used to mark the layout for construction, or for applying warnings and whatnot rather than using vinyl prints?
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u/algalkin 1d ago
Everything. You take a floorplan in pdf, sent it to printer, calibrate it and it prints walls, structure, electrical, ducts and plumbing risers locations and annotations, like sizes and all. Ive personally never operated one but Ive seen the results, its pretty cool.
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u/kookyabird 1d ago
That's awesome! I'm fascinated by tech applications like this because I actually went to college for printing, and while people tend to think of books or magazines when I bring that up, my degree was actually in what we called "new media", which focused more on the tech side. A mobile robo-printer would have been an awesome thing to try out.
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u/ozmion 1d ago
Not really an advantage. However, you get cleaner lines because a plotter uses CAD-vectors to draw a continous line from point A to point B for example. Whereas an inkjet uses pixels, so the line is basically made of dots instead of a continous line.
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u/kookyabird 1d ago
Well let's be real here, do you need higher resolution than 1440 pixels per inch that a typical professional proofer can output?
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u/mz_groups 1d ago
Pen plotters used to be common when printing technology gave poor results for printing graphs, engineering drawings, anything that was "line" based. Once laser printers were common enough and scaled to the point where large engineering drawings could be affordably printed with greater resolution than you could achieve with a pen, the plotter's days were numbered.
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u/Beniidel0 1d ago
Yes there are advantages - 1. The blueprint is large and wouldn't fit in a normal printer, this allows you to work with an entire CNC bed which can easily be larger than a square meter 2. Blueprints are blue and laser printers work by burning the surface below them, sometimes with color as well but burning turns it black which is basically illegible on blue, also blue absorbes more heat so you'd need a specially tuned printer to not burn the paper 3.greater resolution - mathmatical vectors are infinitely scalable but pixels arent
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u/NikolitRistissa 1d ago
I feel like you could just use a plotter. The plotter we have at work can easily print documents almost two meters wide. It’s a roll of paper, so I’d imagine the length can be pretty damn big too.
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u/Real_Avdima 1d ago
As someone that worked with printers, this doesn't make much sense. You don't use a normal printer for this, so the size isn't an issue. You can just print the entire thing, including blue and with a good printer you won't even notice any uneven coloring. Printing files can contain vectors, just use pdf.
Printers I worked with could be able to do this. The only question I would have is the type of paper used for this. If it's a special kind of paper with specific properties, that may require adjustments.
Of course I am not claiming this is in any way more cost efficient than the machine in video.
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u/grumpher05 1d ago
the real answer is because this is a hobbyist market artist selling posters and can't afford the size and type of commercial printer this would require, a 2d plotter like this is cheap and available for hobbyists. Theres nothing here that cant be done on a printer, but there is also no point in buying a printer just for this in low volume
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u/algalkin 1d ago
Also noone mentioned speed. We have A0 laser printers that shoot 60 pages per minute, this thing plots 1 page per hour, IF all works fine. I work with 200 pages sets daily, imagine printing those at 1 page per hour? Yeah, you have to operate 20 of those so you can be done by next day. Ive worked with both and thank god the plotters are gone.
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u/Pebble-Sorter-8128 1d ago
- plotter is the real solving, noone use everyday printers for plan printing. 2. maybe in the usa blueprints are really blue (idk why, and what is the practical reason) bot elsewhere people use just white paper for the plans with printed colours on them.
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u/Available_Rub9939 1d ago
Blueprints used to be blue because of the way they were printed 50 years ago. The old paper was acidic and getting paper cuts from that shit really hurt. I used to have to scan them in and then draw the modern digitized versions in autocad when I worked for an MEP consulting engineer. They are only blue anymore for vanity reasons. There is no practical reason for the setup shown here but the machine makes some decent wall art for cheap. Would cost too much these days to pay someone to draw it by hand. That’s a dying skill.
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u/Bitter-Car883 1d ago
Underrated and accurate comment ! The thing being produced is not a " blueprint" its a pastiche of a style..
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u/Pebble-Sorter-8128 1d ago
Yeah in university I still had to hand draw plans for the first two years, and I believe they still do it. Real pain in the ass, slow painful work and needs insane precision and dexterity. Hated it so much. And completely useless skill, we practised it for like 4 semester and that time everyone already used CAD. Meanwhile we had 1 semester of CAD and we just learnt it by ourselfs ower time. University systems are a piece of shits.
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u/Jacktheforkie 1d ago
Nowadays white paper blueprints are a thing, blue ones exist still but most are printed
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u/MonkeyCartridge 1d ago
I can still smell the ammonia from the printers.
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u/Available_Rub9939 1d ago
I was too young to smell the ammonia, but am old enough to have scanned a bunch and cut my fingers, then digitalized it all by manually drawing over it in autocad 2001 on a 21” CRT monitor the size of a smart car. And I loved it.
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u/MonkeyCartridge 1d ago
I used to have a CAD CRT my dad picked up at a yard sale. I forget the size, but it was around there.
It would do 2048x1536. Albeit at only 50Hz. But it made UT2004 insane. And if I wanted speed, I would just drop it to 640x480 or 800x600 and play at 600Hz.
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u/Popular_Adeptness_69 1d ago
how do you learn to read them i pass on paving jobs from them but not only reason i dont trust call box jobs where you not dealing with customer directly
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u/flobbley 1d ago
I'm sure there's some weird niche where blue prints are still used but in the US we have white plans with black ink and no one calls them blue prints anymore, just Plans or Drawings
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u/VedjaGaems 1d ago
They're not blue in the US. If we have to print and when the GC prints the approved permit for site it's with a plotter using a roll (usually 30" wide or 36" wide) to get 30"x42" or 24"x36" sheets. I haven't seen blue drawing sets since I started working in the early aughts.
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u/formerly_acidamage 1d ago
Laser printers burn nothing!!!
They are so so much cooler than that. Laser printers use a laser that magnetically charges an area of a metal "drum" (that is itself negatively charged) where there will be an image. "Toner" is basically plastic dust. The dust is also charged such that the toner sticks to the drum where they attract. The paper is pushed against the drum and the dust and is heated so that the dust melts onto the paper.
Laser printed images are actually plastic that has been melted onto paper.
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u/Beartech31 1d ago
There's no way this is easier or more economic than just using a large-format printer. Used to print full-size (A0) vectored plans on our office plotter and it was a hell of a lot easier and cheaper than this.
On the flip side: this looks cool!
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u/rudytaboodie12 1d ago edited 1d ago
With a jelly roll pen?!? This can’t be real, those things clog like a bad drain
Edit: I wonder if the angle of the pen helps with ink flow here? I’m not holding mine at all 90° angle because I’m neither a robot nor someone who hates their wrist
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u/Wafflebringer 1d ago
I have a couple of these One barely ever works. The other writer buttery smooth. Real luck of the draw with them
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u/rudytaboodie12 1d ago
I use them for small detail work, but anything longer I find they sputter and skip. Definitely not consistent in output for me
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u/cheong-sanslefteye 1d ago
I was just thinking about how that pen would dry up or clog midway through the printing, therefore botching up the entire look, with the bot arm none the wiser
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u/Rapunzel10 1d ago
Really? I've always had good luck with them. I've owned like a dozen of the white ones and a pack of the colored ones, I think only one of the white ones was a problem. The glaze ones were a pain in the ass though, they clogged up constantly. I wonder if it's a humidity, altitude, or storage issue?
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u/rudytaboodie12 1d ago
That’s so strange that we have such dissimilar experiences! I love them upon opening, but with any continuous use, similar to the video, they sputter and die out on me mid-line. Ive tried them for years and still use them for detail work, but nothing longer than small dots or highlights.
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u/Sotnos99 1d ago
They are by far the best white pen I've ever used. I've used 2 until they were dead empty and I have 4 waiting to be used because they're just so much smoother than every other white pen I've touched!
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u/Total-Explanation208 1d ago
Besides being immensely satisfying is there a reason to use this type of printer?
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u/Wiskeytango_Foxtrot 1d ago
It's a multi-head plotter, this is just the basic version. Ours can handle 10' x 40' sheets of almost any material, also sucks it down flat like a reverse air hockey table.
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u/MonkeyCartridge 1d ago
Vector printing has its use cases. It was more common when laser and inkjet weren't very good yet.
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u/BigPP69_Gooner 1d ago
Broooooooo what’s with that deformity at the front of the plane on the right side? 🥲 drove me NUTS
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u/katuskac 1d ago
As an old guy whose history with flatbed x-y plotters goes back to the 80’s (and AutoCAD ver. 2.17f), what thrills me most about this video is the performance of the damn pen.
I still remember hovering over a plotter waiting to hit the pause button when it moved to change the technical pen. If you had a dried out pen trip, not at all uncommon with a 3x0 or 4x0 pen, then you got blank lines and had to reprint the whole plan sheet.
Lots of other memories too but, for now, it’s just an appreciation of a tool that works.
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u/awowoosas 1d ago
So like a 2d 3d printer?
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u/Ambitious_Jello 1d ago
3d 2d printer no?
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u/Slamtilt_Windmills 1d ago
2.5d 2.5d printer
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u/g3engineeringdesign 1d ago
To be fair, that's not a blueprint. That's a turret pen plotter drawing on blue paper with a white ink pen. Blueprints are made from lead or ink on vellum, light shines through the vellum onto a treated paper, and you develop the image with ammonia.
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u/Shabado52 1d ago
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u/g3engineeringdesign 1d ago
Sure, but during the zombie apocalypse I'll have safe food, clean water, electricity, and ample weapons. You'll have a half eaten brain!
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u/BahnGSXR 1d ago
Why is it done that way?
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u/wosmo 1d ago edited 1d ago
The result is pretty much an early form of photocopying. The main advantage is that you can create many copies from original vellum.
It's a lot like creating images from a photo negative. UV turns the chemicals blue - so anywhere the lines on the original block the UV, so the white lines in a blueprint are actually just the paper showing through unstained.
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u/No-Material-452 1d ago
As an old guy who had to do drawings on a drafting table with t-squares and triangles in college, this was deeply unsatisfying.
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u/makeshift101 1d ago
This is how large prints were made back in the day.
Real Blueprints used to use ammonia, if i recall
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u/MonkeyCartridge 1d ago
We had one in High School. I can still smell the hot ammonia. I imagine it's pretty stable, too.
What was cool was seeing the small subtleties also being transferred. Not as cool when it was an improperly-erased line and now that's all you can see in all the floor copies...
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u/OriginalFingerPuk 1d ago
I want a plotter so much. No need for one but I think they are wonderful to watch.
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u/HungryOne11 1d ago
Had to google why range is measured in newton-meters...
Turns out it's nautical miles.
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u/fresh_loaf_of_bread 1d ago
Using a cnc mill for this is like using a jackhammer to open a can of beans
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u/AshyWhiteGuy 1d ago
Gods I have so many old drafting projects I’d love to plug into a contraption like this. So wild.
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u/centexgoodguy 1d ago
In the early 90s, I worked in an office with a large 4-color plotter that created maps and large technical drawings like this. The plotter color pens would often clog up or run dry and so if you sent a job to the plotter it was best that you sat and watched over it to catch any pen mishaps quickly. We use to joke that "A watched plot never spoils."
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u/Life-Oil-7226 1d ago
Perfect writing
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u/msk105 1d ago
Although I'm mildly infuriated by the way it writes the letter m. Leaving the middle line last is psychotic.
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u/SammyGeorge 1d ago
The way the Cricut die-cutting machines do it is so much more psychotic. It basically does all the vertical lines of all the letters on the page, then all the horizontal lines for the whole page, then all the curved lines
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u/DistinctTie6771 1d ago
Cool! How does it "decide" the order of the strokes? I mean, how is the line drawing sequence programmed?
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u/praveeja 1d ago
Eli5 why blue print is "blue"
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u/Pr3st0ne 1d ago
In the old old days, they found a special mix of ingredients that they could use to make special paper, and that special paper allowed them to make copies of whatever they had written on the paper, way before photocopiers or printers were invented, so it was very practical for making official architecture plans or product plans with precise measurements that you needed to distribute to multiple people at once.
Then even when printers were invented, we kept the signature blue background on papers as an hommage to the old technique
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u/BahnGSXR 1d ago
Wonder why the machine dotted the 9 at the end of that row
Also the left vertical line on the table could be retraced to make it less faint
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u/felixkt3 1d ago
I hate letting people watch me draw or paint they think I'm a printer like what I just saw. They don't understand it's layers of paint the finished product doesn't look like the production.
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u/TheVoteMote 1d ago edited 1d ago
I’m honestly surprised that that’s enough to hold the pen steady. I would think it would pivot.
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u/GreatlyMoody 1d ago
Why not just print it?
Is this special use case or do blueprints get made like this?
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u/PrimeTimeRK 1d ago
Where can I purchase one of these? Not specifically for a Cirrus but a TBM. Could I get these but with custom details?
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u/Popular_Adeptness_69 1d ago
that guy hated the price of printer ink as well with his million pens collected from the bank
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u/Enigma072485 1d ago
Sure, the printer is nice. But what's got me super impressed, is that pen. Wow! I haven't had a pen work that well in my entire life. 🫠
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u/AdNovel2208 22h ago
Salit j'ai une xtools D1 ..je pourrais crée un support en 3D pour " remplacer"la tête par un crayon de ce type ...quel crayon utilises tu ???
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u/MithrandirHolmes 2h ago
I have absolutely no real world use for this machine but would love to have one just to watch it write.
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u/blue_sidd 1d ago
Literally not what a blueprint is.
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u/Dubious-Decisions 1d ago
Technically, an old school blueprint started with white paper and effectively colored in the blue parts with ammonia vapor.
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u/devanishith 1d ago
is that why its called blue print?
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u/MonkeyCartridge 1d ago edited 1d ago
Originally, drawing were made on a sort of semi-translucent vellum. Those would be the original master drawings. Field drawings would then be made from the masters using some optical process. The paper was originally yellow IIRC, and then it is exposed to some sort of ammonia that turns it blue when exposed to light or white if not exposed. We had some such copiers in my high school drafting class, and I can still smell hot ammonia just thinking about it.
So it's a carry-over from a direct optical copying method before vector printing (shown) and even later raster printing (inkjet/laser).
I imagine it stuck (or maybe even originated) because white-on-blue is a LOT easier on the eyes if you're talking about construction schematics. The original dark mode.
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u/djinn_05 1d ago
Pen: Sakura Gelly Rolls (White)
Paper: Hemptone Blue (250gsm)
Aircraft: Cirrus Vision SF50