A Guide to using the Silhouette Cameo Cutter

[BG John]

I've been lurking on these Silhouette and inkscape threads because I'm wondering whether to take the plunge into a Silhouette cutter.

I'd like to ask if BG John's question can be answered satisfactorily another way.

I've been reasonably successful over the years in producing orthographic scale plans sections elevations of buildings, vehicles etc from photograph views using Photoshop.

 

So would it possible to print out scale elevations of the Sully wagon sides (or complex lined out carriage liveried sides) on card and have them accurately cut out on the Silhouette, overlaid with other pre-printed elements and laminated together.

Provided one could suitably colour the exposed card edges, presumably the whole could then be fixed/varnished, eliminating painting and the difficult tasks of applying lining and lettering.

Have I overlooked something obvious like getting an identical registration of a print-out against a Inkcscape vector file.

 

There's a thread here where LBSCR locos are finished in printed out livery.

 

dh

This is what I started with:

http://www.lutrainz.com/Broad_Gauge_Sully.html

 

I imported the drawing into Inkscape, and scaled it to 4mm scale. I imported the photo into GIMP and used the Perspective Tool to remove the perspective. Then I imported it into a new layer in Inkscape and scaled it to fit the drawing. Unlike Mike Trice, I use Inkscape's Guides for scaling and alignment, and before importing I add a Guide for almost every known dimension, which helps when scaling the drawing, which may not be accurately drawn. This one was pretty good, but I found that the planks didn't match the photo.

 

This is a screenshot of where I've got to. I've created separate layers for the drawing, photos, the outside of the body, the ironwork and the paintwork and lettering. I'm planning to make the sides in three layers of 15thou, so will add extra layers for the middle and inside layers later. Using separate layers means you can lock layers to avoid accidents, and hide ones that are in the way.

 

 

The red lines are where I've drawn the outline of the side and end, plus the planks that I've aligned to the photo rather than the drawing. I've started drawing the ironwork in purple. These lines aren't very clear as they're only 0.1mm wide.

 

To come back to the paintwork and lettering, I linked to Kirtleypete's topics earlier, as that's what inspired me to try "painting without paint". I've got his book too. My first attempt was to colourise the photo, and I tried working through some tutorials on doing it, but I need more practice. It doesn't seem to help that GIMP uses black and white as part of the masking process, and this wagon is black with white lettering! So I've left that for now. I want to build several of these wagons with different numbers, so need to change it anyway. The photo was taken on the dump at Swindon after the end of the broad gauge, and I'm modelling it two years earlier, so I suspect it may have been cleaner. This is all beyond my photo editing skills at the moment, which is why I'm trying to draw it. I'll need to do this for wagons without decent photos, and with fictitious liveries anyway.

 

To come back to your question, that's what I'm trying to do. 3 layers of plasticard for the body, with planking scribed on the outer layer. Then the coloured and lettered side printed on paper for the 4th layer, and ironwork added on top of that. I'm not sure about inside yet, as I want to put a coal load in it. I'm aiming to gently scribe the  planking on the paper layer along the scribed lines in the plastic.

 

I was thinking of cutting the paper sides on this one by hand, but it's possible to cut them with the Silhouette. I haven't tried it, but you can add registration marks in Silhouette Studio, print it on any printer, and the Silhouette will line up with the registration marks when cutting.

 

I hope all that makes sense. It's all trial and error at the moment, as it's my first serious attempt, although I've been messing about with Inkscape and the Silhouette for a while without achieving much.

[ozthedog]

 

I am making progress with the Silhouette Portrait and Inkscape.  This is the first building I have made that that incorporates a significant number of components cut on the Portrait. ie lintels which are composed of 3 layers, windows, door and slates.  All cut from 0.25mm Plasticard except the slates which are cut from watercolour paper.

 

This really is a versatile piece of equipment.  The curved lintels would have been pretty tricky to cut freehand.

 

Cheers

 

Keith

Edited September 25, 2016 by ozthedog

[JCL]

John

 

You've got me thinking. Definitely do Mike's suggestion to get as many letters as possible pre-drawn in a similar font, but how about this for an idea?

 

In Mike's tutorials he uses lines of various widths to create beading where the sides are parallel to each other. The S shape is a bent line where both sides are parallel, so Mike's method would work here relatively easily.

 

I enlarged the photo so that it was twice the original size, and then I sharpened it. I then created a 1px line using the Bezier curve tool that ran straight down the miiddle of the letter.

 

I use as few nodes (clicks) as possible to create the line, as the more nodes you add the more you have to control and the harder your job is. I can't check now, but I might have even used one or two nodes too many here (the top and bottom ones).

 

Then I entered node editing (shaded blue in the vertical toolbox on the left, and chose Make Selected nodes smooth

 

Next I edited the nodes to make the curve as smooth as possible and as close to the middle of the line I can by dragging the handles around

 

Next I changed the line width until it was the same size as the letter

 

Then I chose Stroke to Path to change the text into a path. This is exactly what Mike does with his beading.

 

Next I changed the Fill to empty and the line to 1px and black

 

And finally I moved the point at the bottom of the S to provide a more vertical tail.

 

Finished S

 

To give you an idea, it took a lot longer to write this post than it did to create the S shape.

Edited September 26, 2016 by JCL

[JCL]

I should be going to bed but I needed to have a look at the & sign.

 

Done exactly the same way as the S

 

Initial Bezier curve along the centre of the letter. I think this line might be called a spline.

 

Change the line to the correct width and fiddle with the Bezier node control handles. You can see in the image below that the handles (thin lines with dots on the end that you can drag around) run in the direction that the line is travelling in at that point. The very top one, at the top of the curve is horizontal for example. Which is right, a line that is neither going up or down must be travelling horizontally.

 

 

Convert it using Stroke to Path

 

Move a couple of points so that the tips are at the correct angle.

 

One thing, I moved the letters onto a letter layer (create a new layer then right click the letter and choose Move to Layer) so that I could change the opacity so that they were semi-transparent. This gave me better control over the letter shape.

 

The hardest bit of this is controlling Bezier curves. They aren't the simplest thing to master, but are well worth persevering for many reasons. For me, all of the curves I draw now are Bezier curves.

 

Thinking about it, if you are just printing the letters and not cutting them, you probably don't need to convert stroke to path.

 

Here's the svg file with the "S", "2" and "&" drawn. They aren't 100% accurate (it's getting late), but feel free to use it if it's good enough.

 

letters.svg

Edited September 26, 2016 by JCL

[raymw]

Hi JCL,

 

That looks fine for this example, (btw, John said to me he was only printing, not cutting) but it needs more work if dealing with other non constant width fonts - e.g. ones with serifs/different width strokes, italics, etc. Letters like 'W' sometimes have a flat top, sometimes not, so I guess the stroke to path will need changing.

 

I suppose an analogy is 'stirring a pot of paint' if you know the location of your fancy designer paint stirrer, then you don't need to use the nearest screwdriver.. . But, once the paint is on the wall, it matters not.(dunno what the digital equivalent is to getting the paint off the screwdriver blade).

 

Best wishes,

 

Ray

[BG John]

................

Thinking about it, if you are just printing the letters and not cutting them, you probably don't need to convert stroke to path.

 

Here's the svg file with the "S", "2" and "&" drawn. They aren't 100% accurate (it's getting late), but feel free to use it if it's good enough.

 

letters.svg

That's brilliant, thanks. When I tried tracing the outline I was worried about getting it parallel. I'll have a go at that, but think I'll use your characters rather than trying to draw them myself . There are plenty more to try it on!

 

There may well be another use for this, when trying to colourise photos, as each colour needs a separate layer, and a mask to blank out everything but the parts of the photo that will be in that colour. Not sure it would work for this wagon, but might for others. I was thinking of creating my own black and white image, but then adjusting the transparency to get a bit of variation in it from the photo. Lots of different things to try!

 

That looks fine for this example, (btw, John said to me he was only printing, not cutting) but it needs more work if dealing with other non constant width fonts - e.g. ones with serifs/different width strokes, italics, etc. Letters like 'W' sometimes have a flat top, sometimes not, so I guess the stroke to path will need changing.

I think we need a variety of options to use in different circumstances. I found reshaping a rectangle for the squarer characters worked nicely, but probably wouldn't work so well with other characters.

[JCL]

Hi Ray

 

I agree. In my text I said it would work for letters with parallel sides, maybe I should have been clearer and said text with a single line thickness rather than parallel lines. Of the three fonts in the image below, even though the line thickness isn't the same throughout I'd use this method with Myriad Pro and tweak it as it gives smooth curves. Obviously it'd be no use for Lucida Handwriting, and little use with Times New Roman where the vertical lines are of different widths and you have non-parallel parts between them such as the top of the O. In this case I'd use a different method and take more or less care over it depending on the final size of the lettering on the model.

 

 

Hi John, glad to be of service. Thinking about it later, I realised you will have to do the Stroke to Path step no matter what if you need to tweak the points as in the "2" example below. To move that node in the extreme bottom right, I entered the node editing, clicked on the node and dragged it. Pressing the Ctrl key (in Windows) at the same time limits the movement of the node to horizontal and vertical.

 

[MikeTrice]

A few more thoughts about cutting blades.

 

The engraver does pick up a lot of dust during the scribing process:

 

So do normal cutters, in this case the CB09:

 

I did some investigation to see if I could determine how the cutting head actually worked. The holder unit is pulled down, presumably by an electromagnet and returns to its "at rest" position via a spring. Here is a Silhouette Ratchet cutter in place in the "at rest" position":

 

Both the engraving unit and the CB09 cutting tool are heavier being turned from Aluminium. When the engraving unit is put in the holder this is the proper "at rest" position (achieved by me holding up the carrier):

 

Here is what actually happens due to the weight ofthe engraver, the spring no longer returns the holder to the top:

 

This probably explains why when using the CB09 with 20 thou material I get the odd score mark on the surface where the blade has dragged across the surface.

 

The various weights are:

Silhouette Ratchet Blade: 4gms

CB09: 16gms

Amy Chomas Engraver: 22gms

 

It is posible that the extra weight of the CB09 explains why people think it cuts better than the original blades.

[JCL]

Hi Mike

 

I don't have access to a blade at the moment. Do you think that adding some blu-tack or something to the top of the Silhouette brand blade to increase the weight slightly would help people with their cuts? Or would this be too clumsy?

[MickRalph]

Hi Ray

 

I agree. In my text I said it would work for letters with parallel sides, maybe I should have been clearer and said text with a single line thickness rather than parallel lines. Of the three fonts in the image below, even though the line thickness isn't the same throughout I'd use this method with Myriad Pro and tweak it as it gives smooth curves. Obviously it'd be no use for Lucida Handwriting, and little use with Times New Roman where the vertical lines are of different widths and you have non-parallel parts between them such as the top of the O. In this case I'd use a different method and take more or less care over it depending on the final size of the lettering on the model.

 

I had to use a more long-winded procedure to create a 70th birthday present for my wife's French school penfriend.

 

On the internet I found this design,

which I turned into this

I did this by using the "trace bitmap" function to create a path with many nodes; in node edit mode I deleted the original names; found a suitable hand-writing script to create each of the new names, joining the various letters to form a single path for each name; and then moved them separately to the appropriate position on the tree, connecting them up with the various branches of the tree.  This is done by using the buttons on the edit-node toolbar to delete nodes, or to connect two nodes with a line. When I had finished the design, I cut it out on the Silhouette using a wood veneer obtained from Crafty Computer Papers

 

To create the "S" on the wagon, you can use the bezier lines tool to create nodes on the periphery of the letter to form a joined up path, and then use the edit-note toolbar buttons to create the flowing curves - if you click on a single node then moving it alters the path between the two adjacent nodes, or clicking on a line segment allows you to alter the path between the nodes at the ends of the line segment.

 

Mick

[Rob Pulham]

This weekend was a busy one so I didn't get much in the way of modelling done. I did manage to make a little progress on the NER vans getting some door furniture and a roof on the G1

 

It looks a little flat in the middle which I think is a trick of the light because it doesn't look flat in the flesh.

 

To expand a bit on how I created these the G1 is made up of 6 layers of 20thou for the sides. Comprising 3 layers for the main side and then a further 3 layers for the outside framing and the doors and then 10 thou furniture details overlaid on to that when it's assembled. I ultimately had to redraw the bottom hinges because I had them too long and they overlapped which the top ones are meant to but the bottom ones aren't. I have also taken to creating internal bracing in the form of a second floor with the centre cut out which I put inside at cant rail level so that there isn't any chance of the sides being pushed in by handling.

 

 

I had previously put "canvas on the roof of the G2 but took it off because I hadn't got the supports for the opening canvas roof in the right place. I moved them inwards and then re "canvassed" the roof ends using the usual lense tissue and I also made up the opening section with two layers of tissue and some 0.75mm square section rod carefully cut to length and spaced out. This when coated with pva and stretched onto the roof has given a very good result when compared to the photos of examples with canvas roof hatches in Tatlow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those with longer memories than me will note that one of the V hangers is missing. I have removed it to make this one of the vacuum fitted examples for variety since I have a brass kit for a vertical planked version which is unfitted in the stash to build.

[Rob Pulham]

I should also add that I assemble mine in slightly different way to Mike. 

 

I have a sheet of plate glass (a shelf from a fridge that died) and along one edge of it I have stuck a 15x3mm strip of aluminium. This was originally a guide for assembling the bit's of Kirk coach sides (the 7mm sides for those unfamiliar with them come as modules that you assemble side by side to create your chosen coach diagram).

 

This jig has proved very useful for assembling the various layers that make up a silhouette cut vehicle. In conjunction with the jig I also have a completely flat 3" stainless steel tee-square that I bought from Eileens a few years ago (it's so useful I have got Chris to buy me a couple more in different sizes for an upcoming birthday). when gluing layers together I clamp the square to the edge of the aluminium strip using some plastic spring clamps obtained from a pound shop (8 for a pound - great value) which give me a right angled aperture in which to ensure that layers go together evenly. I then coat the bottom layer with Limonene, place the next layer on making sure that it butts up on both planes and then repeat for the 3rd layer.

 

I then have a second sheet of glass (my fridge had two useable shelves) which I place over the top to keep it flat while it dries - I usually make up both sides and ends so that I can spread them out and prevent the to glass sheet from tilting and making anything uneven. The sheets of glass are big enough to work on without being unwieldy and also the top sheet is heavy enough that I don't need to add further weight but it's easy to go round the edges with spring clamps. This method means that I rarely have layers that come adrift unless I am a bit slap dash when applying the limonene in the first place.

 

I will attempt to take some photos to illustrate the jig and clamps but it won't be for a couple of weeks because I am not going up north next weekend.

Edited September 26, 2016 by Rob Pulham

[MikeTrice]

I have been trying to think what to call this post. "How sticky should your mat be?" was one candidate, "to cut out or not to cut out?" was another. Ideally I should cover things that go wrong but trying to deliberately recreate these for photographs is difficult. In the end I thought I would try and recut some artwork I created a long time ago for windows and doors for an N Gauge micro of Erstfeld Depot in Switzerland.

 

A sheet of 10 thou was fixed to my reconditioned (spray adhesive) Silhouette cutting mat. My preferred method is to lay the styrene in place and use a craft rubber roller to make sure it is well fixed:

 

The mat and sheet were feed into the machine and sent to the cutter using speed 1, thickness 33, ratchet blade and double cut. Once cutting is complete providing the mat is not ejected it is possible to peel back a near corner and check to see if cutting right through has been achieved:

 

I deliberately repeated the cut in the hope it would illustrate some problems and I was not disappointed.

 

Let me explain where I am coming from. If you are cutting fine detail (such as my window frames in N) as the blade cuts through it can force the cuts apart resulting in small movement in the glazing bars. Subsequent cuts can then do further damage to the fine detail. If the mat is not that sticky little bit of chad can flick up potentially blocking the blade and getting caught between the blade and fretwork causing damage. Too much dust and failure to clean the blade can interfere with the blade being able to rotate.

 

My extra cutting did result in the material being cut through but at the expense of accuracy of cut:

 

An added problem was that my reconditioned mat was just too sticky now and did not want to let go of the cut fretwork, so next time I will need to destick it as if it was a brand new mat, however I proved to myself that the spray adhesive worked:

 

Some time ago I picked up a tool to remove cutouts from mats made by Cricut. I find this a nice tool to use, however I have used scalpels and artish palatte knives as an alternative:

 

Basically slide the blade under the fretwork and slowly prise away from the mat:

 

The deliberate overenthusiastic cutting and over sticky mat resulted in not a single window frame being successful.

 

Time for a second. This time I used another sheet of styrene on a less tacky mat and only did a single double cut. As a result the cut did not quite go through all the way but as the styrene is more stable has resulted in a much more accurate cut:

 

The downside is the need to manually finish the cut and break out the unwanted parts. Given a new scalpel it is possible to lightly follow the machine cut lines allowing the scrap to be snapped out. Tedious but far more accurate. Just to qualify the glazing bars in the N Scale window are 0.4mm wide:

 

So for large objects such as my LNER Toad B Brake Van cutting all the way through is feasible, however for fine detail it might be more sensible to not cut all the way through and resort to hand finishing.

Edited September 26, 2016 by MikeTrice

[MikeTrice]

Rob, thanks for your wagon images and description. I have been following your various builds using the Silhouette and have been really impressed by your results. I also like your representation of canvas roofs. I guess you have to snap out the scribed 20 thou styrene. What cutting settings do you use? Do you use a cutting blade to scribe the planking? Are there any specific differences needed when cutting for 7mm?

[MikeTrice]

Hi Mike

 

I don't have access to a blade at the moment. Do you think that adding some blu-tack or something to the top of the Silhouette brand blade to increase the weight slightly would help people with their cuts? Or would this be too clumsy?

Interesting thought. As far as cutting 10 thou is concerned the standard Silhouette blade works quite well. Somewhere it has been suggested that using non-Silhouette cutting blades can invalidate any guarantee but then they would say that.

[MikeTrice]

I should add that I have had a lot of success cutting fablon (sticky back plastic). On that basis it should be quite straightforward cutting either fablon of self adhesive labels to provide window frames as an alternative to using styrene.

[Rob Pulham]

Rob, thanks for your wagon images and description. I have been following your various builds using the Silhouette and have been really impressed by your results. I also like your representation of canvas roofs. I guess you have to snap out the scribed 20 thou styrene. What cutting settings do you use? Do you use a cutting blade to scribe the planking? Are there any specific differences needed when cutting for 7mm?

 

Hi Mike,

 

Sorry I meant to add that I score and snap. That said I have been thinking about trying 10 thou for some louvres to save the painful manual cut/snap out process.

 

I only have a cutting blade so that is used for both scoring (for planking) and cutting. It's interesting to note that I have had my Cameo for a year now give or take a week and although I feel that I have had my money's worth out of it I am still using the original blade. I do have a CB09 and both 45 and 60 degree blades for it but I haven't tried them yet.

 

I put this down to taking my time with each cut and building up the pressure over multiple cuts.

 

For straightforward van sides etc. I use:

 

Blue for dotted lines where I want to place overlays etc.

 

Green for score lines

 

Red for cut lines

 

For cutting 20 thou I select all and with the ratchet blade on 1 I have Silhouette settings to custom and the speed 1 and pressure on 15 set to double cut.

 

Once that's finished without unloading the cutting matt, I un-check the blue lines because I will now be able to see them and run the green/red cuts again. This time with the ratchet blade on 3 and the pressure on 23 (speed still set at 1 - I have tried to run it faster but it doesn't give such great results).

 

Next I run, just the red cut with the ratchet blade set on 7,  pressure 28.  and then for a final time I set the ratchet blade to 10 and pressure 

This doesn't cut through but makes for easy snapping out.

 

For 10 thou I have found that starting off at ratchet blade 1 and pressure 15 allows me to do the scoring. I then move the ratchet blade to 3 and the pressure to 33 and that cuts through cleanly

[Rob Pulham]

I have also been playing about with a panelled coach, attempting to use Mike's method described in his Coronation thread.

 

This is the current state of play with one side.

 

 

 

It's cut from two layers of 20 thou with the windows scored and snapped out and the idea was then to add another "layer" using 0.8mm half round beading on the front to create the "gresley coach profile and an additional layer on the back spaced off with a couple of strips that would allow a recess for the glazing and allow the turn under to stick to the back layer.  

 

The only problem is, now that I have laminated the front two layers I can't get it to bend to create the turn under...... I may have try doing the outer layer in 10thou.

 

It's real shame because it looks really good in the flesh

[MikeTrice]

Form the curve in the individual pieces then laminate?

[BG John]

I'm drawing up some wooden open wagons, and the first one seems to be going fairly well so far. I'm wondering what to do about the bolts and rivets on the ironwork and solebars. Do I just add them later, or can I use the Portrait to mark the position, make a small hole to insert some microstrip, or something else?

Mark the position with the Silhouette and press from the marked side with a blunt compass point against a self healing cutting mat. These have been covered before somewhere but offhand I cannot remember where. I will be using the technique on corner plates for my Toad B brakevan and will repost, probably on my Inkscape thread.

 

Found one description here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/63508-wainfleet-and-havenhouse/page-22&do=findComment&comment=1305910

 

I wondered if this is another way to do the bolts on the ironwork (the second part of this post). Cut or mark holes in the outer layer of the side, attach un-embossed ironwork, then emboss it from behind before laminating the sides. It could be done for the outside and inside ironwork. It seems easier and more reliable than trying to emboss very thin and narrow strips.

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/113035-more-pre-grouping-wagons-in-4mm-progress-with-lnw-ratio-kit-bashes/page-7&do=findComment&comment=2445011

Edited September 26, 2016 by BG John

[flubrush]

I have also been playing about with a panelled coach, attempting to use Mike's method described in his Coronation thread.

 

The only problem is, now that I have laminated the front two layers I can't get it to bend to create the turn under...... I may have try doing the outer layer in 10thou.

 

It's real shame because it looks really good in the flesh

 

Rob,

 

You might try cooking them in an oven over a former to heat form the tumblehome.   I've been doing this on some 1:32 scale coach sides in styrene and it works well.

 

 

Here's the former with the shape milled in the MDF however the former could be made more simply by shaping wood by carving and sanding and sticking it to the MDF.   The lower edge of the side is located under a lip in the alloy strip.

 

 

The two pieces of alloy "U" section are now clamped down to hold the part on the former before popping them in the oven.  One development added after the pictures above was to fit washers the thickness of the styrene under the alloy strips at the clamping screws.  I found that even mild clamping pressure could cause slight deformation of the styrene under the clamps under heat treatment and the washers prevent this occurring.   I use two clamping strips since there are machined bolections on these sides and I wanted to avoid damaging them.   One wider clamping strip would probably suffice for sides with no protruding detail.

 

I cook the sides at 100C for around 20 minutes.   I find the time to cook by starting at about fifteen minutes and take the piece out and release the clamps and see if it springs up towards being straight again.  I pop it back in for another five minutes and try again until it doesn't spring up.   I started using this method since I couldn't find an easy way to do the job by dunking the parts in hot water - a method I had used previously to heat form styrene.

 

Jim.

[MikeTrice]

When cutting using the Silhouette Studio software it is worth creating some custom materials in the cutting list.

 

Here I have created two custom materials, one for "Styrene 10 thou cut":

 

And another for "Styrene 20 thou cut":

 

When creating a custom material using the Silhouette Ratchet blade the depth shown on the diagram can be set by clicking on the little arrows to the left and right of the image. Remember that this setting is purely as a reminder, it does not automatically send the information to the cutter.

 

To create a new material click on the "+" button and type a material name into the box and press enter:

 

To use an engraver the blade type must be changed to "Sketch Pen" or the wrong offset will be used:

 

With the pen selected the speed and double cut settings can be made:

 

These custom materials will now be available for subsequent selection when cutting.

[Rob Pulham]

Rob,

 

You might try cooking them in an oven over a former to heat form the tumblehome.   I've been doing this on some 1:32 scale coach sides in styrene and it works well.

 

32Coaches010.jpg

 

Here's the former with the shape milled in the MDF however the former could be made more simply by shaping wood by carving and sanding and sticking it to the MDF.   The lower edge of the side is located under a lip in the alloy strip.

 

32Coaches011.jpg

 

The two pieces of alloy "U" section are now clamped down to hold the part on the former before popping them in the oven.  One development added after the pictures above was to fit washers the thickness of the styrene under the alloy strips at the clamping screws.  I found that even mild clamping pressure could cause slight deformation of the styrene under the clamps under heat treatment and the washers prevent this occurring.   I use two clamping strips since there are machined bolections on these sides and I wanted to avoid damaging them.   One wider clamping strip would probably suffice for sides with no protruding detail.

 

I cook the sides at 100C for around 20 minutes.   I find the time to cook by starting at about fifteen minutes and take the piece out and release the clamps and see if it springs up towards being straight again.  I pop it back in for another five minutes and try again until it doesn't spring up.   I started using this method since I couldn't find an easy way to do the job by dunking the parts in hot water - a method I had used previously to heat form styrene.

 

Jim.

 

Thanks Jim,

 

I did think of what you had been doing when I discovered that it wouldn't bend as easily as I'd hoped. I didn't go any further with the thought because I was unsure whether I could get a consistent curve along a length to do it and more importantly I suspect that Chris wouldn't be at all happy if I suggested baking plasticard in the oven.

[MikeOxon]

..........

 

For cutting 20 thou I select all and with the ratchet blade on 1 I have Silhouette settings to custom and the speed 1 and pressure on 15 set to double cut.

 

Once that's finished without unloading the cutting matt, I un-check the blue lines because I will now be able to see them and run the green/red cuts again. This time with the ratchet blade on 3 and the pressure on 23 (speed still set at 1 - I have tried to run it faster but it doesn't give such great results).

 

Next I run, just the red cut with the ratchet blade set on 7,  pressure 28.  and then for a final time I set the ratchet blade to 10 and pressure 

This doesn't cut through but makes for easy snapping out.

 

For 10 thou I have found that starting off at ratchet blade 1 and pressure 15 allows me to do the scoring. I then move the ratchet blade to 3 and the pressure to 33 and that cuts through cleanly

I have given up trying to do anything complicated in 20 thou card, when using a Silhouette cutter.  I did use it for a GWR PBV but that had only one window in each side!  All my more complicated designs are laminated from several 10 thou layers.  In my case, I use a mix of styrene for the inner body and card, or thick photo paper (colour printed), for detail layers.

[flubrush]

Thanks Jim,

 

I did think of what you had been doing when I discovered that it wouldn't bend as easily as I'd hoped. I didn't go any further with the thought because I was unsure whether I could get a consistent curve along a length to do it and more importantly I suspect that Chris wouldn't be at all happy if I suggested baking plasticard in the oven.

 

Rob,

 

Mindful of domestic sensitivities - although I have never had any problems when cooking styrene at 100C - I wondered if holding the side in a former then wafting a hot air gun or a hair dryer over it might produce the same result.  It might,  in fact,  be quicker since the styrene will get up to heat much quicker than in the oven.  I'll machine up another side and have a bit of a trial with my heat gun and see what happens.  If it works, and it is a lot quicker, then that will suit me down to the ground since I have four coaches to build quite soon and cooking umpteen sections at twenty minutes each will take for ever. :-).

 

Jim.

Edited September 28, 2016 by flubrush