The bigger the space between the joists, the stronger you need your decking boards to be, as they will have bigger distances in between the support joists they are fastened to. Joist spacing is typically referred to as “On-Center” or “OC”, e.g, 16” OC. Joist spacing is the distance between each joist, and are measured in inches from center-of-joist to center-of-joist. Joists are typically spaced out evenly for stability, ease of board installation and a clean look. Joists support the decking boards, which are fastened onto the joists from above. They are set upright for strength, usually fastened to the house at one end, and sitting on top of a central support beam near the other end. If you have ever looked up at a deck from underneath, you’ve seen joists, which are dimensional lumber, (often 2×8’s or 2×10’s). Start with Joists… Joists are the heart of your deck infrastructure. Either way, this post should help you determine the optimal decking board dimensions for your project.Įxperienced builders may want to skip this paragraph, but for most homeowners, it’s important to get your terminology right. Please let me know your results using this procedure by leaving a comment below.Trying to figure out the right decking board thickness for your new deck? Or maybe you’re putting new boards on an existing deck? Or even trying to determine joist spacing based on the type of decking you have chosen. However, my HP Officejet all-in-one printer scales printed drawings by about 0.96 in the Y direction. For example, my Epson ink jet photo printer prints very accurately (as one might expect from a photo printer). If you drawing is still not actual size, it’s possible that your printer might be scaling the print. Your drawing should now print on one piece of paper at actual size. In the previous image, the page width is shown as 3.9202 inches, but my drawing measures exactly 5 inches on the printed page. NOTE: The “Page size” does not always match the actual page size. If your drawing is larger than the size of the paper, there is no way to avoid the print spanning multiple pages and still print at actual size.

If is says pages from 1 to 2 (or any other number), your print will span multiple pages.

Verify that the “ Tiled Sheet Print Range” shows “ Pages from: 1 to: 1“.

In the Print option window, uncheck the “ Fit to page” and “ Use model extents” options.

Thus, if your drawing is a one inch square, but the window shows six inches of space on each side of the square, the drawing will be spread across multiple pages when you print. This step is important because when you print, SketchUp will print not just your drawing but all the space around it too.

Resize the window to reduce the amount of white space around the drawing.

to make the drawing as large as possible in the window:

Choose Camera -> Parallel Projection to produce a flat drawing with no perspective lines:.

Choose Camera -> Standard Views -> Top to adjust the camera view so that you are looking directly at the face of the drawing you want to print, as shown in the following image:.To print at actual size in SketchUp, follow these instructions: To verify that all the parts will fit together properly, it’s important that the paper models are printed at the exact size of drawings. I like to create paper models of my robots before I cut parts out of acrylic on the laser cutter. Below is an example of a drawing in SketchUp that I used to create a layer of Blinky, one of my balancing robots: SketchUp is easy to use, and it doesn’t consume as much computer resources as SolidWorks. Although I use SolidWorks for most of my 3D modeling, I still occasionally use SketchUp for creating drawings that will be cut out with a laser cutter.

Actual 1 inch