Wordsworth Card Kits - FREE downloads

[TimberSurf]

Can you share your experiences as to which printer gives decent results without being too ridiculous on ink costs ?

1. Printers are cheap, don't go for the very cheapest, expect to pay £30-50
1a. Base your choice on replacement ink price, not the actual printer
2. Printers come with cartridges only 10% full! Buy more cartridges with the printer (else you will run out rapidly)
3. Don't buy a printer with one cartridge, if one colour runs out, you throw away lots of unused ink in the other colours! Buy with 4 separate colour cartridges (then if doing lots of mono printing, it does not use the colours)
4. Buy genuine cartridges. They give good colour and will not fade. Non OEM cartridges work well, only if you print many pages every day, but if unused will clog or dry up. (great for the office, but will catch you out at home with intermittent use)
I use HP at home and work, but have had good previous experience with Epson too.
Top tip
Never print without setting print quality:-
Only use best quality for final print, use economy for test sheets (when resizing etc)
If print is 90% black, choose Mono, else colours are used to print on top of black!

[R.Daneel]

I have an HP Envy 4500 all-in-one, and have signed up for the HP Instant ink program...50 pages a month for $2.99.

With the wife using the printer for general stuff, I still have enough pages per month to get a model or three printed. If you don't use all 50 pages, they can roll over to next month, but as with everything your mileage may vary.

As the subscription is based on pages printed, and not amount of ink used, a simple line art page is the same as an 8 * 10 photo page..

[will100]

Hi,

Thanks for the comments, have been looking at these two Epsons which seem to get decent reviews but ironically not on Epsons own site ?!

They are available locally for £35 and £40 and seem competitive ink wise and using separate colours.

Seem the 345 has a faster print speed , 10% heavier and a few more modern features.

https://www.epson.co.uk/products/comparison/20002,20005

Any thoughts ?

Thanks/

[mikem64]

I have the Epson eco tank & I must say I'm over the moon with the printer. I'm still using my first full set of bottled ink & a full set comes in at around £35.

My only advice would be make sure you get a model with individual ink cartridges. Those with multi tank in one a total waste of money as it's always one colour that goes first.

My next advice would be quality paper, paper over ink I found is the biggest issue when it comes to kits fading early.

Hope this helps
Mike

[will100]

Hi All,

Re my recent printer question, a friend has all but given me their HP1510 inkjet as its not wireless and they don't like messing with cables.

After buying a new black cartridge it sprang into life and quiet like the output it produces.

However it has raised a little problem that I could not see an answer to in this lengthy thread .

Been using my mono laser printer to just do some proofs and it has 2 settings, as below.


If I print, via Sumartra pdf with the ' Use original print sizes ' the image appears too big for the paper, with the D of the CARD(top right hand ) being lost.


If I turn off that parameter then the page prints fully on the paper, but there is no obvious way to actually measure the image or a scale to be sure it is the correct size ?

Its only a slight difference but wondered which is correct and what others do ?

thanks

[Bufferstop]

Try other PDF readers, those that claim simplicity of use, often lack the ability to get the sizing correct. For a time the original Adobe PDF reader gave poor scaling, but they seem to have addressed the problem and the last few releases have been ok. There are so many alternatives I haven't bothered trying them out. Even if the current Adobe version and your printer can't agree on the length of a metre there's a percentage scaling feature so you can tweak the output size.

[will100]

Try other PDF readers, those that claim simplicity of use, often lack the ability to get the sizing correct. For a time the original Adobe PDF reader gave poor scaling, but they seem to have addressed the problem and the last few releases have been ok. There are so many alternatives I haven't bothered trying them out. Even if the current Adobe version and your printer can't agree on the length of a metre there's a percentage scaling feature so you can tweak the output size.

Hi,

Could try other pdf readers, but thats the real problem , how to know when the scaling is correct even a 100% ?

Is there any of these downloads that have a printed rule / size on it to reference against ?

[Bufferstop]

You actually need the dimension to be in the PDF that you are using. You don't need 100% accuracy for scenic items, but you do need consistency if you are going to match things up. Mike, next drawing you do could you put a simple 100mm line one one side and across the bottom. It would be easy then to see if your reader/printer combination was getting the scaling right.

[ghutchi1]

Another option would be to download one of the pdf rulers available, print it out, and check with a steel ruler to see if it all aligns up, if not try printing using the scaling function until it does, then print out the Wordsworth kit you want to build using that scaling.

Geoff.

[Bufferstop]

The one thing you just have to have is a known dimension put in the original image, if it's come from someone else, as their PDF generator may not be exactly the same as your own. PDF is another of these standards that has grown from it's original concept, which was built on the back of the Postscript printer language which was capable of driving any printer with a high degree of accuracy, but along the way the accessibility of the coding has been lost. Many years ago when the generation of the postscript file could take ages it was often quicker to save it as a text file before doing a trial print, then if the print was ok edit the file with a text editor and change the command which told the printer how many copies you wanted. It's a long time ago but I seem to recall looking for the magic word "showpage" somewhere near the end of the file and changing the number that followed it.
One of the reasons that PDFs changed from a straight text file was that you could edit out things like security watermarks and messages that said it came from the "Education Only" version of the software!

[crf38]

I am a wargamer rather than a railway modeller and am using these kits for my 1940 Home Guard games.
I am currently building the kirk and have hit a snag. I appreciate why the pdf is protected but is there any way I can print just a part of a page? I have tried cutting and pasting but to no avail. Basically, I am trying to build it in relief so that windows and doors are set back and need two copies of some of the parts. On page 2 for instance, I want two doors but do not need more than one of any of the rest of the page. This similarly affects most of the other pages. To print out the whole model twice uses so much ink and much of it is unneeded and will just go in the bin.

[TimberSurf]

I am a wargamer rather than a railway modeller and am using these kits for my 1940 Home Guard games.
I am currently building the kirk and have hit a snag. I appreciate why the pdf is protected but is there any way I can print just a part of a page? I have tried cutting and pasting but to no avail. Basically, I am trying to build it in relief so that windows and doors are set back and need two copies of some of the parts. On page 2 for instance, I want two doors but do not need more than one of any of the rest of the page. This similarly affects most of the other pages. To print out the whole model twice uses so much ink and much of it is unneeded and will just go in the bin.

Use the comments in your pdf reader, there will be a square box tool. Simply "mask" off areas you don't want to print, with white boxes

[Bufferstop]

I did have a utility which allowed you to print a PDF to jpg file which then permitted it to be edited or selections cut out. Then Mikem updated his software and it stopped working for his files. But his new software produced such good files that it was quicker to print and scan them and still not see any degredation. I'm using Mike's files and scanning them as the software for my cutter can't import PDFs. I open the jpg files in the cutter's design software, add the indexing marks to them, then draw on the required cuts. For a paneled coach I have one copy of each side with just the window glass cut out, and another copy with the windows and panels cut out, then once printed I laminate the layers, with a sheet of clear acrylic as the base layer. If I was doing a larger windowed coach I would add another layer behind the acrylic with just the window openings. For Mikes multi layer buildings the cutter saves a lot of tired fingers.
Here's a picture from my layout thread
a terrace of Mike's houses on the backscene above the retaining wall that I scanned then applied a perspective effect to get the impression that they aren't parallel to the wall

[crf38]

Thanks for the reply but, unfortunately, all the drawing tools are greyed out. Looking at the security settings everything appears to be password protected apart from Printing. I am really at quite a loss.

[TimberSurf]

Thanks for the reply but, unfortunately, all the drawing tools are greyed out. Looking at the security settings everything appears to be password protected apart from Printing. I am really at quite a loss.

I didn't realise it locks you out of the comment tools!
It also locks you out of printing to a pdf that you could then comment on!
Download a free pdf editor such as PDFSAM and use to split the pages, you can then mask off areas with the comment tools. Right click on the boxes and select 'Properties' to change the border colour to white