Printing tips

All of the Printable kits and texture papers designed by Railwayscenics are supplied in zip files as PDF (Portable Document Format) files. To read PDF files you must have Adobe Reader installed on your computer. This software is free, and is available by clicking on the image below if you do not have it already.

All the kits and texture papers are designed to be printed on to A4 (210x297mm) size paper.

Each of our printable kits come with various printing requirements. Please read the instructions supplied with the download before you print.

Texture sheets

A quality photo matt paper or a 120-160gsm plain white paper is recommended. We have found that the better the quality of paper, the better final print will be. Printing should be carried out using your printers special setting for photos, and if possible for matte paper. This will use more ink, but will give a very high quality image.

Template sheets

The template sheets only need to be printed onto ordinary quality copier paper.

Glazing sheets

The glazing sheets should be printed out on a special acetate sheet for your style of printer.

Instructions

These should be printed onto ordinary quality printer paper.

To open our zipped files

Our zipped folders are created using WINZIP. This is available for most operating systems, but is no longer free. We have listed some alternative free programs that will also open zipped folders. Just click the images to be taken to the website where each program can be found. Once you have downloaded and installed the small program, you should be able to open the zipped files just by clicking on the file.

To print a PDF

1. Launch Adobe Reader and then open up the files in the download, or if you have adobe reader installed just double click the file.
2. Select FILE then PRINT.
3. Select the printer you wish to use if you have more than one.
4. IMPORTANT: Print at 100% and ensure that all page scaling, FIT TO PAGE or similar are UNCHECKED. Failure to do this will result in the printout not being to scale.
5. Select PROPERTIES, and select the type of paper you are printing on, and then select the desired quality or dpi. The higher the print quality the better the results. On some of our downloads lines will be missing if a low printer resolution has been selected.
6. Save these printer settings (if this feature is available).
7. Select OK or PRINT.

To print a particular page of the PDF.

It is possible to only print one page of a PDF. This is particularly helpful if you have made a mistake and wish to print the part again.

1. Open the PDF using Adobe reader.
2. Select the print option by either using the menu or clicking on the print button.
3. On the main screen that opens, go down the page to the PRINT RANGE section.
4. Select the page number that you require.
5. Select OK or PRINT to print the page.

A printer test sheet can be downloaded from the free downloads area to allow you see the scaled textures and to test your printer settings. It also shows you some of the different textures that we have available. The printout is scaled to 4mm ft.

Re-size chart

Several of our customers have asked us how to resize our scale models using either a copier or printer. Use this table to give the appropriate enlarge or reduce to re scale the drawing.

Example:- To resize a kit from 1:87 (HO Scale) to 1:76 (OO Gauge) you should divide 87 by 76 then multiply by 100 to get 114.473%, which in the chart below has been rounded up to 115%.

Using the above table

Find your scale in the table along the top, then scroll down to the desired scale and find out the factor you need to enlarge or reduce. So, if, say, I have HO scale plans I want to enlarge to O scale, I run across the top to HO, then down to O scale, and see that I need to enlarge the plans to 200%. If I have O scale plans I want to reduce to OO scale, I run across the top to O and down to OO, and see I need to reduce the plans to 57%.