GN_Paul

Santa Claus has arrived early and brought a portrait 3 all the way from Germany. Reichart is asking £172 and Myfabrics £209 compared to Amazon's £240. Well that is what about what I paid recently for a solder station (a lot less if you add in the price of solder!) so that I can attempt a brass etched kit of a J6 that has been languishing in the drawer for the last 30 years! I have reservations about the static strength and fatigue life of soft soldered joints (perhaps I should add that my other hobby is 5 inch gauge live steam with a GNR Stirling Single on currently on the bench about 85% complete and hard soldering is a fact of every day life). I am now sorted on how to spend my time between Xmas and New Year! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.

Very many thanks to all for taking time to respond to my request for information. Whereas methods and techniques are usually transferable between 4mm and 7mm, the same is not always true with 2mm. Often the smallness of size gets to you: obvious example is the tolerance on a drawing or width of a cut which will be finite and the same regardless of scale and is multiplied by 152 for 2mm to get the full scale equivalent so that the width of a cut would become a noticeable gap on the full size prototype. My next question is choice: do I go for a portrait or cameo? What are the advantages/disadvantages for each machine apart from price?

Hello JCL Apologies for joining your party rather late. I model the GNR and ECJS in 2mm finescale. I am very interested in the application of the Silhouette Cameo (or Portrait) to 2mm FS modelling, especially the construction of carriages. I am considering making a purchase. I have tried scratchbuilding carriages as described in David Jenkinson's Book but found that cutting panel frets in 2mm to be not very successful. I am currently building the frets from Evergreen microstrip but the smallest microstrip available is 010 by 020 so the thickness of the whole fret has to be reduced using a filing board. Again not ideal. I should very much appreaciate your comments on the Cameo's suitability. For instance, how small a rectangle can you cut with the Cameo? A GN toplight is typically of the order of 1mm by 2mm in 2mm FS. If you were to reduce the size of your example 4mm scale GNR carriage to one half, how successfully would the Cameo cut out the panel fret. Many Thanks Paul