I recently purchased "The Strip-Built Sea Kayak" by Nick Schade. In Chapter 4, he writes about creating form patterns by using spreadsheets and or CAD programs. I am interested in doing the same. I have the Office 97 version of Excel. However, I am concerned with printing the forms scaled correctly using only Excel.

Has anyone used Excel alone or along with a drawing or CAD program to create your form patterns?

Can anyone recommend and describe their experiences with low-end (inexpensive or free, with a short learning curve) drawing or CAD programs to create and print scaled forms? I am not in a position to buy an $800 CAD program nor do I have access to one.