A Guide to using the Silhouette Cameo Cutter

[Siberian Snooper]

I've made some progress on the building.

 

The brick outer layer is now cut after a brief hiccough with the ends. One end has to be "taller" than the other because the building will be on a slope and they're handed because the building is only in low relief.

 

I took the inner (plain plastic) end shapes and increased their width by the required amount completely overlooking that I'd continually moved the various shapes around to minimise the waste and this included turning it over several times (although I never gave it a thought) knowing that didn't matter with the plain plastic.

 

Guess who initially cut the brick ends the wrong way round?

 

I've had a couple of problems.

 

Firstly, adjacent straight lines often seem to join together and behave as one thereafter. I haven't yet found a way alter each component part individually.

 

Secondly, the roof slope requires cut lines to be drawn diagonally. Is there any way to extend a diagonal line in the same way as you can a vertical or horizontal line? The angle or the line thickness seems to change each time I've tried it.

 

And finally (for this post) . . . 

 

The window and door apertures of the middle (plain white) layer of the laminated front are the same size. Consequently the inside cut edges of the white are clearly visible through the window and door openings. The answer (I presume) is to paint the white edges. Can I do this without fear that any adhesive I use whilst subsequently fixing the inner white layer (which also requires painting and has smaller cut openings) will damage any earlier painting? I don't think my painting precision is good enough to leave it until all the assembly work is complete.

 

I use a felt tip pen after laminating bits together, I find felt tip pen is much more controllable, I also use them for the black beading on GW coaches.

[Ray H]

 

The majority of the layers have now been cut and the ends have been laminated.

 

The front wall outer (brick) and adjacent (plain white) layers have also been laminated together but the window & door frame layer has just been placed behind the outermost two for the picture (as have the two doors). I'll square them up before I laminate them.

 

The ground floor (shop) windows will simply be glazed behind the window & door frame layer, as will the door once it has been affixed to the frame.

 

I'm undecided about the upper windows. They definitely need at least a horizontal bar across the middle but I can't see this working if added to the innermost layer in the picture because it will be too narrow and most likely break off as I attempt to remove the infill plastic from the rest of the opening. I'm therefore thinking that I'll cut the window with an horizontal rail - muntin? - from 0.010" plastic because that won't need the infill plastic snapping out because the Portrait can cleanly cut 0.010" plastic.

 

I know they're not square but I think the window frames - at approx. 1.5mm wide (per glazed area) - look too wide. I think 1mm would look better. I might also increase the glazed area in the doors.

 

I set the Portrait to do 4 passes on the most recently cut (0.020" thick) layer - Blade depth = 10, speed  = 1 and Force/thickness = 33. I don't think the cut was noticeably any deeper so I'll revert to just doing two passes with the blade.

 

 

[Stubby47]

Has anyone any experience of cutting transparent sheets?

 

For example, does the sticky mat leave any visible residue on the sheet?

[bgman]

Has anyone any experience of cutting transparent sheets?

For example, does the sticky mat leave any visible residue on the sheet?

Hi Stu,

 

Yes I have cut transparent sheets, can't remember the thickness off hand, my method was to tape the sheet over an A4 piece of paper just to alleviate the possibility of any residue and didn't have any problems.

[MickRalph]

I have cut 10 thou plastic sheet (for coach windows) and didn't find the sticky mat leaving any residue on the plastic.  Any there might have been should simply roll off with a rub of a finger.

 

Mick

[terrysoham]

Hi,

 

Having used my Cameo for the first time, I now have three identical 10thou sides and one 10thou overlay for my n scale building in Plastikard. I now need to laminate them. I have some D-Limonene on order to try out.

I don't think that I've laminated styrene before so I need some advice.

 

Thank you in advance.

 

Regards

[Siberian Snooper]

200917_1.jpg

 

The majority of the layers have now been cut and the ends have been laminated.

 

The front wall outer (brick) and adjacent (plain white) layers have also been laminated together but the window & door frame layer has just been placed behind the outermost two for the picture (as have the two doors). I'll square them up before I laminate them.

 

The ground floor (shop) windows will simply be glazed behind the window & door frame layer, as will the door once it has been affixed to the frame.

 

I'm undecided about the upper windows. They definitely need at least a horizontal bar across the middle but I can't see this working if added to the innermost layer in the picture because it will be too narrow and most likely break off as I attempt to remove the infill plastic from the rest of the opening. I'm therefore thinking that I'll cut the window with an horizontal rail - muntin? - from 0.010" plastic because that won't need the infill plastic snapping out because the Portrait can cleanly cut 0.010" plastic.

 

I know they're not square but I think the window frames - at approx. 1.5mm wide (per glazed area) - look too wide. I think 1mm would look better. I might also increase the glazed area in the doors.

 

I set the Portrait to do 4 passes on the most recently cut (0.020" thick) layer - Blade depth = 10, speed  = 1 and Force/thickness = 33. I don't think the cut was noticeably any deeper so I'll revert to just doing two passes with the blade.

 

For cutting in the area of thin items I add and extra cut line  0.1mm inside the finished cut, plus diagonals to help with breaking out. if necessary it's easy to file back to the finished size. It works down to 0.5mm (20thou)

[Siberian Snooper]

Hi,

 

Having used my Cameo for the first time, I now have three identical 10thou sides and one 10thou overlay for my n scale building in Plastikard. I now need to laminate them. I have some D-Limonene on order to try out.

I don't think that I've laminated styrene before so I need some advice.

 

Thank you in advance.

 

Regards

 

Cut or drill some holes in the inner layers and allow an hour or so between laminations. I also add some weight to keep it flat.

[Ray H]

I brushed some Limonene onto the surface of one piece and simply placed the next piece on top. Surprisingly I had to be reasonably quick in doing so knowing how quick the Limonene doesn't go off when you holding a couple of pieces together whilst they bond!

 

I then went around the edges with the Limonene.

 

I'd overlooked the inclusion of some breather holes but it didn't seem to matter.

Edited September 21, 2017 by Ray H

[jonhall]

Just as a reminder I'm going to demonstrating cutting with a Portrait machine at Scalefourum over the weekend, if anyone would like to see one in action or talk about it. I'll also have a few examples of laser cutting and etched design to compare&contrast the techniques.

 

Jonathan

[Ray H]

I discovered a couple of interesting facts with the software and cutter this morning.

 

About 90% of the shops in the image below were produced using the cutter. The shop sign above the doors, the curtains, the "padding" for the chimney and the plain roof panels weren't.

 

 

I thought I'd give the roof slates a go on the Portrait using 0.010" plasticard.

 

The drawing was relatively easy to produce in Inkscape, setting up one slate and copying that then copying the pair and then the quartet and so on. I did the same for the rows. All the measurements and positions were keyed in as co-ordinates rather than trying to get the tiles accurately positioned using drag and drop.

 

The resultant "drawing" was 200mm by 152mm and is probably more than I'll need for the shops but it'll give me a few for stock. Each "slate" is 8mm high by 4mm wide with the intermediate vertical cuts only 5mm high so that each row remains intact.

 

I saved the file in both .SVG and .DXF formats.

 

I couldn't get the file to open at the correct size in Studio no matter what I tried. I re-opened one of the other files I'd produced yesterday to cut parts of the building and that opened at actual size. I even reduced the drawing width in Inkscape by removing two slates off the end of the row just in case Studio didn't like the size. In the end I re-sized the drawing in Studio and it is now cutting the "slates" (and taking about an hour to do so!).

 

The other aspect that I discovered was that the blade appears to traverse each cut four times - twice in each direction - even though the number of passes is set to 2. I shall try to remember to check if it does that next time I cut anything.

[chris p bacon]

Has anyone any experience of cutting transparent sheets?

 

For example, does the sticky mat leave any visible residue on the sheet?

 

I've used it to both cut transparent as well as score it to resemble the glazing bars,  I've got 2 mats, the newer with a bit more 'tack' is used for the thicker sheets and the older for thin and clear. Not had a problem with it leaving any glue/residue.

[meltonpieman]

I discovered a couple of interesting facts with the software and cutter this morning.

 

About 90% of the shops in the image below were produced using the cutter. The shop sign above the doors, the curtains, the "padding" for the chimney and the plain roof panels weren't.

 

260917_1.jpg

 

I thought I'd give the roof slates a go on the Portrait using 0.010" plasticard.

 

The drawing was relatively easy to produce in Inkscape, setting up one slate and copying that then copying the pair and then the quartet and so on. I did the same for the rows. All the measurements and positions were keyed in as co-ordinates rather than trying to get the tiles accurately positioned using drag and drop.

 

The resultant "drawing" was 200mm by 152mm and is probably more than I'll need for the shops but it'll give me a few for stock. Each "slate" is 8mm high by 4mm wide with the intermediate vertical cuts only 5mm high so that each row remains intact.

 

I saved the file in both .SVG and .DXF formats.

 

I couldn't get the file to open at the correct size in Studio no matter what I tried. I re-opened one of the other files I'd produced yesterday to cut parts of the building and that opened at actual size. I even reduced the drawing width in Inkscape by removing two slates off the end of the row just in case Studio didn't like the size. In the end I re-sized the drawing in Studio and it is now cutting the "slates" (and taking about an hour to do so!).

 

The other aspect that I discovered was that the blade appears to traverse each cut four times - twice in each direction - even though the number of passes is set to 2. I shall try to remember to check if it does that next time I cut anything.

Ray

 

Do you mean that you cut a strip of tiles out completely? Then, I assume that you intend to glue them overlapping the row below, etc. That has given me some interesting ideas, I would be interested in seeing a picture and the cutting file if that is possible.

 

Regards David

sent from my iPad

[MickRalph]

The other aspect that I discovered was that the blade appears to traverse each cut four times - twice in each direction - even though the number of passes is set to 2. I shall try to remember to check if it does that next time I cut anything.

I guess that the mutiple cuts is because when a duplicate tile is aligned next to the original slate, then two sides are overlapping, so that there are actually two lines being each cut twice.  Then each time you do another duplicate and align it, you are creating more double lines.  If you are creating the tiles as four separate lines, then you can delete one of the overlapping lines before doing the next duplication.  If you have created a rectangle and then duplicated this, it is a lot more complicated to delete doubled lines, as you have to convert the rectangles to paths and then break the paths into four lines before deleting doubled lines on each tile.  I would just let the cutter do quadruple cuts instead of double.

 

Mick

[Regularity]

Just to be clear, are we talking about tiles (which typically overlap each other) or slates, which should have a slight gap between them?

[Ray H]

Mick

 

I did the small cuts as individual straight lines 5mm long - the slates were 8mm x 4mm. I duplicated them by setting the "x" position of the initial vertical (so to speak) at a (known) whole figure and then simply cut and pasted the next one which was then set at "x" + 4(mm), etc, etc. I'm fairly certain that none of the cut lines were duplicated but I will take a look at the cutting file.

 

David

 

I set up an initial row of tiles across the equivalent of a portrait width of an A4 size page, I then duplicated each row in much the same way as I created the initial row - i.e. cut and paste the first row and then set the relevant x & y co-ordinates - the x value being the same as the row above, the y co-ordinate being 8(mm) lower than the previous row's y co-ordinate.

 

Here's the .svg file.

 

4mm Roof Tiles.svg

[jonhall]

I promised various people at Scalefourum that if Yolo did a discount code I would post it here - it should knock a useful amount off a new machine.

 

Jon

 

12% OFF FOR 12 HOURS ONLY*

Simply place your order at www.yolo.co.uk before 12pm tomorrow and the discount will automatically be applied at checkout.*12% off online only at www.yolo.co.uk until 12pm on Wednesday 4th October 2017 inclusive. Exludes heat presses. Discount applied at checkout. Not valid in conjunction with any other offer.

[dhjgreen]

I promised various people at Scalefourum that if Yolo did a discount code I would post it here - it should knock a useful amount off a new machine.

 

Jon

 

12% OFF FOR 12 HOURS ONLY*Simply place your order at www.yolo.co.uk before 12pm tomorrow and the discount will automatically be applied at checkout.*[/size]12% off online only at [/size]www.yolo.co.uk until [/size]12pm[/size] on [/size]Wednesday 4th October 2017[/size] inclusive. Exludes heat presses. Discount applied at checkout. Not valid in conjunction with any other offer.[/size]

Thank you, order placed.

[dhjgreen]

Thank you, order placed.

Just been delivered.

[dhjgreen]

Hello, is there anybody still there? If there is has anybody use Pixscan successfully please?

[bgman]

Yes, but not all of the time

 

I've just watched the video on their website and it seems like an interesting item. My only concern would be its accuracy and how confident the user is keeping their phone steady enough to get a sharp image.

[jonhall]

Pixscan seemed to work well when I tried on a downloaded building.

Jon

[dhjgreen]

I seem to be making progress now. Neither the manual or youtube are very helpful. Thanks for taking an interest

Yes, but not all of the time

I've just watched the video on their website and it seems like an interesting item. My only concern would be its accuracy and how confident the user is keeping their phone steady enough to get a sharp image.

I ended up using a DSLR on a tripod!

[dhjgreen]

Pixscan seemed to work well when I tried on a downloaded building.

Jon

What rev of the software are you using Jon? My new yesterday Portrait has rev 3 and the most uptodate is well into rev 4. The latest (US) version works for me; success, only taken all day.

[dhjgreen]

I seem to be making progress now. Neither the manual or youtube are very helpful. Thanks for taking an interest

I ended up using a DSLR on a tripod!

bgman, remember that most of the users are crafters producing greetings cards, so accuracy is is not as important as to us. I may just contribute further on this as I now have some ideas as to producing good quality cutouts, starting with totems.