Chapter 1: Beginning to Read Plans. A civil engineer’s scale has divisions of 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 to the inch. An architect’s (or mechanical engineer’s) scale expresses scale as fraction of an inch to one foot. Sample scales would be 1/4” = one foot, 3/8” = 1 foot, 1/8” = 1 foot, or similar.