Custom Automotive Blueprints

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Joined
May 7, 2012
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Location
Near Houston, TX
My Car
1971 Coupe. 302 2V - C4 trans
I just heard of this artist on the 69stang forum. The artist will create a custom "blueprint" of your car. $80 for a custom (basically whatever you want on there, you can send him specs, pics etc), but he will do a "standard" year for $25 or so. Blueprints are 18x24in, and look pretty nice. Electronic download, you print yours at a local shop. I'm getting a custom one done for a buddy who has a 55 packard patrician, but I haven't seen the results yet. the guys on the 69 forum said it was a great product. You can look at the 1969 standard print here:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/385614510/1969-ford-mustang-blueprint-poster-18x24?ref=shop_home_active_3

Just wanted to offer it up in case some of you guys decide you want to get some of the 71-73 mustangs in the artists inventory. Sure seems like we need them in there!

Jay

 
Those are pretty cool. ::thumb::

The only disappointment I see in the whole thing (very small, and just my own personal opinion), is that I was expecting to see actual blueprints of the cars... as in: technical drawings. Like the ones they put in Road & Track. Kinda like this:

road-and-track-1973-annual-road-test-summary-elan-sprint-plus-2-130s-04.jpg


What the folks on Etsy did is really cool, but as someone who's generated a fair number of technical drawings and subsequently, blueprints, the Etsy folks pretty much just Photoshopped some pics using binary filters. I guess that's how the graphic arts field has kept up with technology, namely CGI. Back in the day, one had to actually scribble all the lines, or literally cut-n-paste things together to make the final product. The lowest common denominator however, is having 'the eye' for producing awesome work. I've always had the skills... just not so much 'the eye' (and being red/green color blind never helped, either).

Again, this is a nice find, and I hope they do well - I'll probably even order one of my own.

Sorry for the tangent, I just wasn't expecting to see photoshopped pics called blueprints. (and don't mind me, the coffee hasn't kicked in yet ;) )

 
Thanks pretty cool looking!!!!

My son is a graphic designer. He created this image from the interior of my 1970 Mustang

Tim, that looks awesome! ::thumb::

Your son obviously has 'the eye' I was talking about.

:bravo:

 
I have always wanted to get my hands on some original Ford drawings. I have a few of the aluminum grill blue prints from the 60's. They are full scale so quite large. When you got a blue print from Ford or any mfg. it can full size. They would send you a copy on plastic media so you could run actual blue prints off of it. The old treated paper ultraviolet light and ammonia to make the Blue Prints. That thing would open up the sinus if you had a cold, lol.

When ISO and QS-9000 kicked in our plant destroyed all the old drawings some done on linen in ink. We were originally Firestone division so Ford had given them work from way back. There were drawings from the 30's would be worth a fortune. I came in one Monday and went to the drawing room and all the huge flat file cabinets were gone, room full, and I asked where they were. CITY DUMP. Made me sick. We use to make the old hand pump gas pumps and the official soap box derby wheels. All those old linen ink drawings were gone, still makes me sick. So much for progress they thought we might get one of the old drawings confused with a new one. Now you just get downloads from them and you seldom print anything that makes it not a controlled drawing.

I have been in several Ford factories and they had Model T drawings hanging for decoration in quality and engineering. Attached a couple pictures of two copies I made from some before they were destroyed. They were in garage and got mashed. Thought I would iron them and put in my new garage. We had a big scanner I could have ran them through if I had known they were going to be tossed.

 
There are the Jim Osborn set of Body Assembly and Chassis assembly manuals...not exactly what we are talking about but nice to have around. They are licensed by Ford.

 
The UV/Ammonia imbibed paper is still used for making blueprints, but the process has changed: The blueprints people are more familiar with (as in the ones found on the Etsy site) are 'negative blueprints.' The image masks the ammonia while the UV light converts the ammonia into the blue tinted printed areas.

The modern machines still use original drawings passed through UV light to mask the image onto the ammonia imbibed paper, but then the exposed paper is run through another step to deactivate the ammonia, which changes the masked image from the active ammonia 'yellow' into a blue-line image. Blueprints [and blue-lines] are also used and produced less and less thanks to technology and the reduced cost of document/image printing. It's a LOT cheaper to crank out copy after copy of 'white prints' than it is to make traditional blueprints in both time and materials.

A translucent media (vellum or mylar) is used for the actual drawings - linen is rarely used these days. Vellum (typically rendered with pencil) is less translucent, so it produced a noisier background, which if the line weights weren't very distinct, a lot of translation of the drawing could simply fade into the background if the exposure wasn't intense or the ammonia imbibed paper was old and 'tired.' Mylar (typically rendered with ink) is much more translucent and produced better blueprints. Standard bond paper can be used, but it blocks a LOT of the UV light used to burn off the ammonia to make the print - hence the need for more translucent drawing media.

Photoshop (and similar computer applications) can easily duplicate the 'blueprint' look - whether negative or positive. Basically, take any image, clean it up to an 'outline' image, dump the color levels to 2, and choose white/blue - now you have a blueprint image. It still takes a bit of work and skills with the computer to make it happen, but it just doesn't seem like as much of an art form as it used to be, IMHO. Not better or worse... just different.

I think I've been watching too much "How It's Made" lately. LOL

 
I have always wanted to get my hands on some original Ford drawings. I have a few of the aluminum grill blue prints from the 60's. They are full scale so quite large. When you got a blue print from Ford or any mfg. it can full size. They would send you a copy on plastic media so you could run actual blue prints off of it. The old treated paper ultraviolet light and ammonia to make the Blue Prints. That thing would open up the sinus if you had a cold, lol.

When ISO and QS-9000 kicked in our plant destroyed all the old drawings some done on linen in ink. We were originally Firestone division so Ford had given them work from way back. There were drawings from the 30's would be worth a fortune. I came in one Monday and went to the drawing room and all the huge flat file cabinets were gone, room full, and I asked where they were. CITY DUMP. Made me sick. We use to make the old hand pump gas pumps and the official soap box derby wheels. All those old linen ink drawings were gone, still makes me sick. So much for progress they thought we might get one of the old drawings confused with a new one. Now you just get downloads from them and you seldom print anything that makes it not a controlled drawing.

I have been in several Ford factories and they had Model T drawings hanging for decoration in quality and engineering. Attached a couple pictures of two copies I made from some before they were destroyed. They were in garage and got mashed. Thought I would iron them and put in my new garage. We had a big scanner I could have ran them through if I had known they were going to be tossed.
::thumb::::thumb::::thumb::::thumb::::thumb::::thumb::::thumb::::thumb::

They need going to restorer and get creases out then framing with yellow glass to stop sunlight damage

 
They would send you a copy on plastic media so you could run actual blue prints off of it. The old treated paper ultraviolet light and ammonia to make the Blue Prints. That thing would open up the sinus if you had a cold, lol.
I'm not sure what was worse: the smell of the ammonia burning off, or the deactivator turning it 'blue.' :whistling:

 
Those are pretty cool. ::thumb::

The only disappointment I see in the whole thing (very small, and just my own personal opinion), is that I was expecting to see actual blueprints of the cars... as in: technical drawings. Like the ones they put in Road & Track. Kinda like this:

road-and-track-1973-annual-road-test-summary-elan-sprint-plus-2-130s-04.jpg


What the folks on Etsy did is really cool, but as someone who's generated a fair number of technical drawings and subsequently, blueprints, the Etsy folks pretty much just Photoshopped some pics using binary filters. I guess that's how the graphic arts field has kept up with technology, namely CGI. Back in the day, one had to actually scribble all the lines, or literally cut-n-paste things together to make the final product. The lowest common denominator however, is having 'the eye' for producing awesome work. I've always had the skills... just not so much 'the eye' (and being red/green color blind never helped, either).

Again, this is a nice find, and I hope they do well - I'll probably even order one of my own.

Sorry for the tangent, I just wasn't expecting to see photoshopped pics called blueprints. (and don't mind me, the coffee hasn't kicked in yet ;) )
Great feedback- It would be cool to have more tech info. If you pay for the "fully custom order" ($80) you caould probably have him add any of the info or styling you like....

 
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