A long time ago I was taught to make a scale for a set of old plans that had been put through the mill, printed, copies then printed again but to a smaller scale.

The drawing had dimensions so I could easily make a new scale ruler to aid its use in getting an idea of size. Yes I know importing a pdf into most CAD packages, including my favourite Vectorworks, allows almost perfect rescaling, but some times the old way is just convenient.

All it takes is five minutes to set up and creat a paper of card scale specific to the drawing you have.

Plus if your onsite, and an old drawing is produced, its look cool as you confidently create a scale.

This happend to me in and old hotel we were renovating, I was there to survey and draw it up, ok this was way before CAD so I used to take a portable board and a box full of instruments.

A photo plans of most of the rooms was produced, so a laid over a sheet of tracing paper and just made a scale to get some check measurements for my survey.

It is old school, and not taught in College or University any more, but every now and then I would spend half an hour and just show the principle.

Imperial or Metric it makes no difference.

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