Some time ago I purchased a Silhouette Portrait cutter, up until now I haven't used it much. I started learning how to use Inkscape but due to house renovations and protracted periods back in Blighty I stopped my studies.

I'm now determined to get on with something and thought a Diesel might be a fairly uncomplicated project to begin with. I once did a cardboard model of a metro-vick, primarily to put into a small diorama for a competition so it was very basic as it was to create a replica of a photgraph, that was the brief of the competition.

Since then I've had this urge to model something a little more complex but still from cardboard. when scratch building with plastic sheet it entails a bit of sculpture along with the other things like measuring and cutting etc. I'm convinced those skills can be put to use using cardboard instead of plastic sheet, so I'm going to have a go. I might fall flat on my face but at least I won't exit this world still wondering!

I've been doing a little experimentation with regards to methods of construction. My Idea is to make the sides and ends quite thick something like 3mm so the corners can be profiled with fine sandpaper so to this end, using some nice grey cardboard that came as a stiffener with a shirt I bought. It seemed quite compact and sure enough once 6 - 4.45mm layers were stuck together it became quite stiff and responded well to being filed with an emery board to a nice smooth radius. I've given it several coats of acrylic paint (Rolls Royce style) and is beginning to develop a nice smooth surface

I've taken a couple of photos to show what I've done so far

I cut three strips, I folded one in half and used it as a gusset to attach the other two together, but leaving an overlap 3mm long which would have 5 other 0.5mm strips put in place to fill the overlap. On the other part I glued another 5 strips, but stepped them back each time by 0.5mm to create a sort of chamfer. This corner was surprisingly rigid once dry.

Here's a photo with the various layers in different colours to give you a better idea, (hopefully).

I mixed some filler using the dust from the sanding, mixed with PVA it proved quite good, but shrunk back a fair bit once dry. I glued a strip on top of the angled piece and sanded a radius on the edges and rounded the corner so it's sort of similar in shape to the front wing of a land rover, this was then painted with Railmatch acrylic paint.

This has now been sanded and painted several times and is quite smooth

So it's now on to designing the parts to cut out with the Silhouette.

More later