A Guide to using the Silhouette Cameo Cutter

[MikeTrice]

Mike, thank you for the valuable informations.

I'm very curious, where did you get the specifications that the offset  is 0.45 mm for the ratchet blade ?

By the blade being 0.9mm wide so offset is distance from edge of blade to centreline of blade.

[Dave John]

Well, my first post on RMweb. 

 

This thread and the one over on the CRA forums convinced me to buy a portrait. So far I have I have really enjoyed learning how to use it, the information all of you have provided has meant I avoided a lot of basic mistakes and made the learning curve a lot gentler than it would otherwise have been. 

 

In time I might post some pics, but I still have the L plates on for now. My thanks to you all for helping me get started with it all. 

[JCL]

Hi Dave, I hope you enjoy using it, and don't be afraid to ask questions, until recently we were all where you are now.

[BG John]

Hi Dave, I hope you enjoy using it, and don't be afraid to ask questions, until recently we were all where you are now.

Some of us still are .

[stevejjjexcov]

Hi to all. Can you help,I am having trouble cutting paper with the cameo three. The blade used is the standard one that came with the machine, the cutting speed is 3 and thickness 15. The problem is instead of a clean cut the paper is ripping any ideas for a cure as I am just wasting time and paper. Thanks in advance

 

Steve

[BG John]

Hi to all. Can you help,I am having trouble cutting paper with the cameo three. The blade used is the standard one that came with the machine, the cutting speed is 3 and thickness 15. The problem is instead of a clean cut the paper is ripping any ideas for a cure as I am just wasting time and paper. Thanks in advance

 

Steve

My settings for printer paper on my Portrait are speed 10 and thickness 15, with the blade depth set to 1. I use paper for test cuts before cutting plastic. I think I got a few tears last time I tried it, but was trying to do very fine cuts.

 

Is your blade sharp? I haven't used mine much yet, and am still on the first blade, so I'm not sure how long they last. The other thing I haven't done yet is clean the blade. Blunt and dirty blades are the things that cause similar problems with cutting paper by hand.

[stevejjjexcov]

Thanks BG JOHN I will try those settings. The blade should be ok as its only 3 months old, we will give it a clean and see if that helps. We are new to the cameo so are on a learning curve. We hope to be able to get as good as others on here, we have seen some brilliant work inspiration indeed

 

Steve

[Rob Pulham]

As  light diversion from rolling stock etc. I did these on my cameo from Inkscape drawings last week.

 

 

They are made up of multiple layers of 20 thou scored and snapped.

 

They are destined for the occupied arches that I am putting as a backdrop on a diorama.

[DesertPackRat]

Well, aren't those neat! Nice work, good thinking on the design. 

Could you post a pic of what the parts look like please? I can't visualize how the center layer works. 

[Rob Pulham]

Hi DesertPackRat,

 

Below is a screen grab from inkscape,  in the end I didn't use all the parts and I only used the centres from the smaller sized circles - two layers made up the exposed thread, protruding from the nut.

 

[etendam]

Rob,

 

they look excellent, the only thing I can think of if you need a lot is to make alignment pegs in the rings. That would make the assembly much easier.

 

Ed

[JCL]

One quick thing for people using faster cutting speeds. If you have the time, try comparing a cut with your speed against a cut at a speed of 1. On my cutter I found that the slower the speed cut more accurately. Of course, your experience may differ.

[Ron Heggs]

On the subject of speed settings, I have been cutting 40 thou styrene recently (over 30 sheets of 220 x 330 mm) for various viaducts and station platforms - the maximum thickness that the Cameo will accommodate - of course the sheet cannot be used with a cutting mat. The downside is there are unusable margins at the left and bottom edges 

 

To ensure accuracy of cuts, especially where curves are involved it is necessary to use multiple cuts at speed 1 starting at a low thickness (pressure) setting and following up with subsequent cuts at increasing (pressure) thickness settings, all with blade depth 10

 

This procedure of low speed and progressively increasing pressure prevents the blade grabbing the styrene and causing it to move slightly from its initial path through the roller

 

The final result is accurate cuts to approx. depth of 25 - 30 thou, which means the sheet can be snapped fairly easily

[pharrc20]

I too have just taken the plunge and received my Portrait and intend to use it to make up wagon hopper bodies for several projects that I have been wanting to model for quite a long time. I will take my time and have a good read of the various threads again on here before having a go at drawing up the flat-pack bodies that I need and hopefully won't make a hash of it all!

 

Cheers Paul

[JCL]

Hi Paul, sounds good. The great thing is that if you do make a bit of a hash of the first one, you can call it a working prototype. I often make a hash of what I'm doing, as time has gone on I make fewer, but I doubt many people get it right first time. Unlike a kit, if a particular part is sized or cut incorrectly, you can redo it for the price of the material used. I often use offcuts for these is I can.

[pharrc20]

Yes working prototypes that sounds good. I already have an idea of the things I want to do plus a load of drawings and mock-ups I did some years ago and just need to get things going to have a go at making my first sheet of hopper bodies. I have some of the sheets that Jon Hall made for the petro-coke PAB covered hoppers that he developed and sold his spare sheets off plus his Tullis Russell PAA hopper also gave me further ideas of how I could produce my own stuff.

 

Cheers Paul

[DesertPackRat]

Thanks Rob!

[Londontram]

Hi Paul, sounds good. The great thing is that if you do make a bit of a hash of the first one, you can call it a working prototype. I often make a hash of what I'm doing, as time has gone on I make fewer, but I doubt many people get it right first time. Unlike a kit, if a particular part is sized or cut incorrectly, you can redo it for the price of the material used. I often use offcuts for these is I can.

I'm working on what I call my Caledonian wagon project which is drawing and cutting a range of five or six models which I have drawn to be easy to assemble almost like a kit so I can run off multiples of certain ones to bulk out my wagon fleet. The first couple I made lots of mistakes but altered the drawings as I went along re cutting the body completely in one case but you do get the feel for it quite quickly, luckily most of the mistakes I've managed to correct by hand when building them so the first set of test builds will hold muster and can go on to do service on my railway (When that gets built lol) but the drawings have all been tweaked for the next ones.

 

   I found in some cases I might only need to re cut one part and if your careful you can use those left over bits from the bottom of a sheet as long as you position the drawing near the top of the page, you soon get the feel as whether it will fit or not and I've found the amount of plasticard I have left over has dropped considerably. 

[JCL]

Absolutely. There are often occasions where you can save a model either manually or with a bit of recutting of parts, which means that the first one is not sacrificial. And of course, this is easier if you are evaluating each part before gluing it. Of course, if the scale is out (like the 6 wheel full brake at the very beginning of this thread, then you are a bit unlucky. But even then, it may be worth finishing because the parts would still fit the same way and have the same problems - or not.

 

Londontram's build is inspirational not least because he only picked up Inkscape fairly recently and has been going great guns with it since.

[MikeTrice]

One quick thing for people using faster cutting speeds. If you have the time, try comparing a cut with your speed against a cut at a speed of 1. On my cutter I found that the slower the speed cut more accurately. Of course, your experience may differ.

I would have to reply: "it depends"

 

The following image of my N Gauge Erstfeld roof tiles were cut at different speeds being 1 at the top 5 for the middle and 10 for the lowest. Each tile is 1mm wide. Although the speed varies in settings from minimum to maximum there are not a lot of visible differences, nor is there a marked change in overall cutting time. I think the reason is that for such a complicated shape most of the elapsed time is taken up by the cutter raising and lowering rather than actually cutting.

 

For artwork with long lines it might have a greater impact.

[siltec]

My latest effort with the Cameo

 

Another three ready to be made up

 

Actually also checking how inserting gallery image works.

 

[Rob Pulham]

In between while the brain can't cope with anything too involved I wanted to do some more experiments with Crackle medium because I want to weather my Slaters Tar tub. Like when I did the doors I would rather put my efforts into something useful as opposed to just testing things on a an offcut of styrene. As I was looking for something else a couple of weeks ago I came across a Skinley Drawing for a rectangular tank wagon. 

 

I scanned it, imported it into Inkscape and very quickly cut out some 10 thou overlays for the top, sides and ends. A search in my spares box dug out a spare filler cap. The drawing has a deep filler neck so I glued it to a spare Parkside Vacuum cylinder which was the right size.

 

I then glued the overlays to some pieces of 60 thou and assembled it all to make up a tank body - I am still not sure as to whether to leave it as a grounded tank or to knock up and underframe and add it to the stock list. I suppose that will depend on how happy I am with the weathering job.

 

 

 

 

This is straight from the cutter,  I haven't drilled out the rivets and added stubs of styrene rod.

 

The next step is to put a coat of primer on and see how it looks then.

[BG John]

 

This is straight from the cutter,  I haven't drilled out the rivets and added stubs of styrene rod.

How did you produce the rivets? Or have I missed something in this massive topic?

[Rob Pulham]

How did you produce the rivets? Or have I missed something in this massive topic?

 

Hi John,

 

You haven't missed anything to my knowledge and that was the reason that I pointed it out. The rivets are simply 0.8mm circles scored by using cutting on depth one pressure 33 as the first cut.

[BG John]

Hi John,

 

You haven't missed anything to my knowledge and that was the reason that I pointed it out. The rivets are simply 0.8mm circles scored by using cutting on depth one pressure 33 as the first cut.

I'll have to try that. It looks a lot easier than punching them by hand.