Paper holder
A printed frame that puts every sheet in the same place under the pen plotter
November 2026
A printed frame that puts every sheet in the same place under the AxiDraw SE/A3, so a drawing can come back for another pen and land on its own lines, and keeps the sheet down while it plots. The brief: “keep corners sturdy ... easy to adjust but really hold down sheet for plotting.”
Five versions in two days in Rhino, 4–5 November 2026: a taped-down corner stop, a fence adjustable on small screws, a base with hold-down bars, then printed T-slot rails with clamps that slide along any rail and lock with one turn of a printed knob. The current one closes the frame with three printed corners, 663 × 393 mm outside, and takes A3 or A4: a gate sets the sheet’s width and the clamps go where the sheet needs them.
A test plate of a rail, a clamp, a T-nut and a knob printed clean and fit; the nut and rail slide well and the clamp locks in about two and a half turns. Whether it holds the paper hard enough is the next test. The whole frame is sliced into four plates, about 21 hours of printing.
It will live on a shelf on the French cleats of the workshop wall: ¾-inch plywood, 2×4 braces cut at 45° on the chop saw, and a one-inch packer to clear the bolt heads in the cleats. The shelf is drawn for the shop on two 11 × 17 sheets in centimetres, in the drafting style and title band of the theatre drawings, every number taken from the Rhino model.
In progress: the frame is not yet printed and the shelf not yet built.
