A Guide to using the Silhouette Cameo Cutter

[peter findlay]

The lintels and sills for the signal box are cut from 20 thou styrene. Before cutting the Portrait is used to score the individual blocks in the arched lintels and a guideline on the sill.

 

 

After they are fixed to the embossed brick of the structure they sills are filed to the scored lines to form sloped cast offs for rain water. The picture below shows some of the sills and lintels in place.

 

 

The signal box has brick detailing around the building so thin strips of embossed brick sheet (2 courses and 3 courses high at window level, 6 course high at base) were cut and added to the structure. The picture below shows this in process

 

 

Leaving the box to set for 24 hours the next step will be to paint the brickwork.

 

Peter

[peter findlay]

Quick update on the progress of the signal box.

 

After the the brick detailing has been addded, the embossed brick is painted and dry bushed with Humbrol enamels.

 

 

The sills and lintels are painted to represent stone. The score marks created on the lintels using the Portrait cutter are more visible now.

 

 

Next step is to prepare the 10 thou laminations for the windows and doors.

 

Peter

[Siberian Snooper]

I need a little help please, due to my computer bench starting too buckle under the load I have had too replace it and I have got to the point where I need to connect up my Cameo cutter, but I'm not sure which power pack it uses as I currently have 4 available all of which will plug into it, but have different outputs and ratings and I don't want too use the wrong one so I would be obliged if someone could post a photo of the correct one.

 

TIA.

 

SS

[MikeTrice]

My Portrait has  Model TL04-240125D

 

Input 100-240V

Output is 24V 0-1250mA

[Siberian Snooper]

My Portrait has  Model TL04-240125D

 

Input 100-240V

Output is 24V 0-1250mA

Thanks Mike,

 

I will have a look after tea and see if I have one of those.

 

SS

[Siberian Snooper]

Thanks again Mike, I have one of those, hopefully I can get some cutting done tomorrow, it's railway club night tonight and I have to go too Exeter tomorrow morning.

 

Thanks

 

SS

[meltonpieman]

Hi everyone

 

I have read through this whole epic saga! Half way through my wife and I bought a Portrait but I am still waiting to start using it (after the wife lets it out of her grip).

 

I have a project to build a large stone viaduct and to be able to emboss styrene with the stone patterns, dressed facings, and keystones (that suit the spans I want) is fantastic. Some many pages back there were various comments on trying diamond tipped embossing tools for this (rather than a blade). Can anyone tell me if this succeeded? If so, what type of embossing tool and holder were the best?

 

Yours

a silhouette novice

[sn]

Hi all, I have been using the cameo for about 6 months now and am still finding it's capabilities out. It does however allow me to tackle projects that I wouldn't have even been game to attempt by hand.

IMG_1749.JPG

The panelling is part of the platform buildings on my layout of Wigan Wallgate ex L&Y station, 5 various buildings in all. The trips to the chemist for plasters would have far outweighed the cost of the machine if past efforts are anything to go by  .

The building below had all the window openings cut by the cameo and the windows frames were cut out following a design done in a slightly better cad program than the one supplied, the building itself is developed from a couple of photos of the actual building in Wigan. All of the above were either printed onto or cut directly from self adhesive label paper prior to sticking onto a thicker card and then cut or in the case of the windows clear sheet.

 

IMGP0043mod.jpg

 

Haven't been game to try styrene sheet yet but given the in depth info provided here I had better give it a go.

 Great thread JCL thanks for starting , will keep up with interest

 

Kev T

WIgan Wallgate eh? Now I like that idea!  Lots of freight to and from Liverpool I expect. Where are you with it?

 

Len

[peter findlay]

To achieve the recessed panels in the signalbox doors, two laminations of 10 thou were used. The individual panes in the windows are seperated by 0.5mm. 

 

The width of the sides are reduced to take into account the existing thicknesses. Before fitting the windows were painted off white and the doors LMS crimson.

 

 

 

The cuts from the Portrait are very fine and much crisper than I could have achieved by hand.

 

 

Next is to add the supports for the exterior walkway.

 

Peter

Edited April 4, 2016 by peter findlay

[JCL]

Hi everyone

 

I have read through this whole epic saga! Half way through my wife and I bought a Portrait but I am still waiting to start using it (after the wife lets it out of her grip).

 

I have a project to build a large stone viaduct and to be able to emboss styrene with the stone patterns, dressed facings, and keystones (that suit the spans I want) is fantastic. Some many pages back there were various comments on trying diamond tipped embossing tools for this (rather than a blade). Can anyone tell me if this succeeded? If so, what type of embossing tool and holder were the best?

 

Yours

a silhouette novice

 

Hi there, I'm afraid I don't remember anyone coming to a satisfactory conclusion about this. I bought the http://www.amychomas.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=78 scriber, but I haven't really used it very much as I've come to the conclusion that my machined is a little underpowered.

[MickRalph]

In post 1289, ozthedog (keith) wrote:

 

I bought the Designer edition update key for the Studio software.  Cheapest I could find was £20 from here

Main reason was that I want to import .svg files prepared in Inkscape and then have the option of printing by colour or layer. It works very well with the slight issue that the size of objects decreases slightly on import.  This is despite everything being set to mm  in Inkscape and Studio.  I have not been able to find any instructions for use of the designer update.  It is relatively intuitive and fairly easy to learn by trial and error but there is one tickbox that one has to be wary of. If you want to re-cut an object eg scoring planking on a door then it is essential to tick the  return to origin tick box under Advanced options in the cut settings drop down box.  Bottom right on screen capture below.

Keith

 

I responded that I had not had the problem with drawings being resized when imported into Silhouette Designer Edition, and checked with my most recent cutting that the drawing was the same size.

 

However - disaster!!  Having completed the drawing plan for a loco from the Tramways of the Correze, I imported it into DE; it looked a bit small on the page, but I did not check it and printed the design on 10th plasticard.  When I then measured the cut items, I found that they were about 80% of the correct size!  After much head-scratching and comparing properties of the recent Inkscape files for LSWR dining saloons (which had come out the right size) with those of the TC loco, I found that for the saloons, the "Page" tab of "File>Document Properties" had the default units as mm, but the custom size units was set to px. 

 

Setting the custom size unit to px in the loco plan (see attached diagram - sorry about the poor quality - first time I have exported a png from Inkscape) resulted in the drawing being imported as the correct size in Silhouette Studio Designer Edition. A similar solution may help with resizing problems when exporting from Inkscape as dxf files - this may have been why I changed the properties for the saloons.

 

I will email Silhouette support to enquire whether this is a bug.

 

Mick

Edited April 5, 2016 by MickRalph

[Rob Pulham]

The NBR D39B van has also progressed to just needing a roof and couplings.

 

 

 

 

The brake levers proved to be a little challenging, none of my many Parkside or Slaters spares were long enough. The answer was to laminate a piece of 0.25mm either side of a piece of 0.5mm and leave it over night to dry thoroughly.  - in the same manner that I did the W Irons earlier.

 

I then cut a couple of tapered strips and applied limonene to both sides where I wanted the bends to be (one bend at a time) once the limonene had softened the strips I made the bend with some round nosed pliers. I then used some self locking tweezers as clamps to hold the bends in position while the plastic hardened again. 

[meltonpieman]

Hi there, I'm afraid I don't remember anyone coming to a satisfactory conclusion about this. I bought the http://www.amychomas.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=78 scriber, but I haven't really used it very much as I've come to the conclusion that my machined is a little underpowered.

 

Thanks for that Jason.

 

I will probably just engrave/emboss with the blade then. If I get adventurous later I might invest in a scriber and give it a go. But hey ho simple is best to start with.

[Western Star]

How does cutting ABS (from Plastruct) compare to cutting styrene (from Slater's)?  By "compare", I am interested in the respective settings for the cutting blade (ratchet blade, thickness, double cut selected).

 

What settings do people use for 20 thou styrene sheet?

 

regards, Graham

[James Harrison]

I bought a Portrait cutter last week and intend initially using it for carriage sides.  So yesterday saw me scanning in drawings of Great Central clerestory stock and tracing over them.  I so far have found the draughting software supplied to be quite intuitive and user-friendly; which surprised me as usually I start with new software and spend several days getting frustrated with it! 

 

Last night I had my first go at cutting some plastic with it; I only have 20 thou sheets at the moment and knew it would only score the surface, but just out of curiosity, with the blade set to 10 how deep should the score be?  Because I found that it only scored maybe a quarter of the way through and I had to do the majority of the cut with a scalpel.  I'm not sure if that is all I can expect from the blade with 20 thou sheet, or whether I didn't have the blade fully inserted into the machine.  

[BG John]

These are my settings for 20thou, that I think I got from someone else in this topic. Low speed and high pressure are important, and it's set to double cut. It may cut deeper if you run the cutting process more than once, but that's something I haven't tried yet.

[James Harrison]

Aha!  That must be where I slipped up.  I'd set the blade to 10, the speed to 5cm/second and the thickness to (I think) 20; must admit the measurements for that part confuse me a little.  Is it relating to thous of an inch (I assumed it did) or whatnot?  (Must say I am rather surprised that the pre-loaded settings don't include plastic sheet, but do include 1/16'' chipboard, of all things...)

 

As I say, I've ordered some 10 thou sheet for my carriages but I am considering using it for loco parts and maybe buildings as well, which would need 20 thou sheet (it would be really useful, for example, when it comes to cutting cab sidesheets, tender frames, splashers and running plates). 

[BG John]

I think "Thickness" needs to be read as some arbitrary unit of pressure in the case of plasticard, and it needs the maximum setting of it!

 

Locos and rolling stock in 4mm and 7mm scales are on my to-do list, so experiments with different thicknesses that won't cut through, and laminating thin sheets that will cut through, will be needed.

[MickRalph]

I have just cut some parts for an 0-6-0 tank engine of the Tramways of the Correze.  I have cut the parts in 10 thou, cutting two of each shape to be laminated together.  I have just finished taking them off the sheet.  I am planning to post some photos here and to start my own thread on the building of the loco, but we are in France and have some decorating jobs to do before we go back to England on Wednesday.

 

Mick

[Siberian Snooper]

I use the max settings and the slowest speed and double cut and do it a couple of times when cutting 20 thou before taking the sheet out of the machine.

[JCL]

To be honest, I've always used a speed of 1 for cutting everything - I have more time available than styrene sheet. If it's a big job, then I can use the time productively by putting the kettle on. One other point, as Siberian Snooper says, as long as you don't press the eject button (or equivalent) and remove the material, you can actually run the cutting process more than once and it should register perfectly. You might want to test this on your machine before multiple cutting a big job.

Edited April 10, 2016 by JCL

[ozthedog]

Setting the custom size unit to px in the loco plan (see attached diagram - sorry about the poor quality - first time I have exported a png from Inkscape) resulted in the drawing being imported as the correct size in Silhouette Studio Designer Edition. A similar solution may help with resizing problems when exporting from Inkscape as dxf files - this may have been why I changed the properties for the saloons.

 

Just tested this with my software.  I drew a 20mm x 10mm rectangle in Inkscape and saved the file with the Document properties set either to default units in mm + custom size  in mm or default units in mm + custom size in pixels.  Then imported both files into Studio Designer.  mm + mm resulted in box changing to 16mm x 8mm whereas the box remained 20mm x 10mm with the settings of mm + px. 

 

Problem solved - Thanks MickRalph.

 

Cheers

 

Keith

[James Harrison]

Success! 

 

I gave it another shot last night with some thinner plastic, set to double cut.  Once it had finished that double cut it still hadn't gone quite fully through the plastic (I only had the blade set to 5), so I ran it through again and then finally broke through with a scalpel. 

 

 

It is very difficult to photograph white on white, especially with fine detail, so I did 'something' (I don't know what) with my camera to get it to darken the image to pick out the detail.  I am very happy with that as a result.  If I were building a full carriage body I would be looking now to brace the side and stop it twisting, however my intention is to fit it to a Hornby clerestory carriage, so I can leave some fairly chunky bits of the original carriage side in place to fill that function. 

[MickRalph]

Just tested this with my software.  I drew a 20mm x 10mm rectangle in Inkscape and saved the file with the Document properties set either to default units in mm + custom size  in mm or default units in mm + custom size in pixels.  Then imported both files into Studio Designer.  mm + mm resulted in box changing to 16mm x 8mm whereas the box remained 20mm x 10mm with the settings of mm + px. 

 

Problem solved - Thanks MickRalph.

 

Cheers

 

Keith

In case anyone else decides to buy Silhouette Studio Designer Edition or has a similar issue when exporting from Inkscape to the standard Studio, you can avoid having to change the settings for each document by changing the "document properties" of the default.svg file (in the "templates" sub-folder of the "share" sub-folder within the "Inkscape" folder).  This is the file which opens when you start a new document.

 

The only way I could alter the default file in Windows 10 (it won't let me save files in c-drive folders) was to open a new document, amend the properties to have the "general" default units as mm and the "custom size" default units as px; save this file as "default.svg" somewhere else; and then move this file to replace the original default.svg file (closing Inkscape first, so that the file isn't still open).

 

Now when you open a new file it will have the correct properties to import into Studio correctly.

 

I hope this is of help to someone.

 

Mick

Edited April 13, 2016 by MickRalph

[Rob Pulham]

Thanks Mick,

 

I get the same result when saving the svg and opening it directly in designer edition, although replacing the default.svg doesn't seem to have done the trick for me. I must have done something wrong so I will have another go.