Biased turkey

Here is the final result for the TT scale bicabine . It is a very interesting project that make me discover some limits , and some good points of the Silhouette Portrait. The bicabine behind is 3D printed Jacques

I build a paper engine shed and a paper version of the steam tramway. Jacques

Robin and JCL, thank you for taking some of your valuable time to reply. Robin: This is a feasability test printed on white HP white brochure paper 180 gr/m2. The model doesn't have any white part, the roof and the chimney will be painted grimy black. The final version will be printed on color paper. I'm a member of a french forum ( Loco Revue ) and all the modellers use Canson paper. JCL : I tried felt tips and didn't like the result. I'll try artist pastel. The roof of the tramwaay was built using the " Rochefort trappist beer bottle" .The paper is taped on a bottle , coated with some Aleene's tacky glue. When the glue is dry , the paper the cut the right size. Jacques

Another picture

After building the TT scale paper engine shed , I now have a paper engine . It is a belgian vicinal steam tramway ( 90% complete ) it is not the final version , it is printed on matte photo paper. I would like to print the final version on green color paper. What kind ( and brand ) of high quality paper is best suited for the silhouette portrait cutter ? Jacques

Unpainted closed wagon 3D printed using the Frosted Extreme Detail material 16 micron layers

2 high sided wagons , the left one is 3D printed and the right one was built the classical way using the good ol' Xacto no. 11 knive for cutting the styrene sheet, Plastruct T and L shapes . Jacques

A 2nd version renamed Montfort brewery ( the brick texture is from Model Builder software ) shows beter the various layers Jacques

A closeup to show how various create a 3D effect. Jacques

Thank you &1.38 ( sorry no pound sign on my keyboard ) and Dutch_Master for taking some of your valuable time to reply. &1.38 , this is not a kit. The scale is TTm ( 1/120 scale , metric gauge 9mm N scale track ). The belgian company Jocadis used to sell SNCV/NMVB bicabine kits but they were HOm ( HO scale on TT 12mm track ) As far as I know we are 2 on earth to model the SNCV/NMVB in TTm scale so we have to scratchbuild everything. Dutch_Master , Thank you for those extra informations . Interestingly there was a line Maaseik (Belgium)-Weert (Netherlands) .Two Garratts ran occasionally on that NMVB tramway line. Interesting link: http://www.modelrailroading.nl/Articulation/pages/netherlands/NMVB%20850-851.htm The bicabine chassis is a Bachmann N scale Plymouth 3 axles diesel engine and the body is 3D printed . The high sided wagon ( wagon a haussettes ) chasis is from Fleischmann and the body is 3D printed. Here they are on the diorama.

I'm modelling the type 18 bicabine .

From Wikipedia : The Tramways vicinaux or Buurtspoorwegen were a system of narrow gauge tramways or local railways in Belgium, which covered the whole country and had a greater route length than the mainline railway system. They were 1,000 mm (3 ft 3 3⁄8 in) gauge (metre gauge) and included electrified city lines and rural lines using steam locomotives and diesel railcars Picture of the prototype ( therev was also a small passenger traffic ) Jacques

The same .studio3 file was used to erase the stones , the cutting polygons and draw the door and the 3 windows at the exact locations where the openings were cut. The 3rd layer is printed, it will be cut by hand after the stone layer is glued on top of it. The 4th layer is made by drawing and cutting the external details individualy. Here is a picture of the final result Jacques

The next step is to cut the openings in the front wall. The Silhouette Studio let us draw "cutting polygons" where the openings will be located ( in our case, 3 windows, 1 door, 1 arched door and the rectangle edge for the front stone wall ). We might "simplify" and draw a complicated polygons including the outside the edge, door and arched door We add the "Registration Marks" so the cutter has some references where the cutting area on the paper sheet is located. The Silhouette has a cutting blade AND an optical sensor. Our .studio3 file with the stone texture, cutting polygons and registration marks is printed and introduced in the cutter We now click on the "Cut" button and watch the machine do the cutting job while we are having a beer. There are several ways to add the cutting polygons, but that's another story.

Each side of the building is composed of 4 layers: Glazing Door and windows Stone or brick or whatever texture External details: windows sills , stone arch etc... First I drew the front wall section , the stones were drawn one by one The pencil drawing was scanned to produce a .jpg file that was directly imported in the "silhouette studio " software supplied with the Silhouette Portrait We now have a .studio3 file with the scanned brick texture

Thank you Kelly and Siberian Snooper for taking some of your time to reply. Here are more details. I didn't take pictures when I built the cardboard engine shed. Here is the procedure for the 2nd project named the "Montfort brewery" (I'm a homebrewer ) The first picture is the prototype, the house where I was born ( 1948 ) in the hamlet of Montfort ( Belgium ) What a beautiful stone house, they don't build them like that anymore

I recently purchased the Silhouette Portrait cutting machine. The idea is to use it for cutting airbrush masks . I tested the Silhouette by building a card shed for my TT scale belgian vicinal steam tramway. Here is the result. I'm new to card modelling and I enjoyed building the shed Jacques

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 ?

In order to test the option of importing .pdf files in the Silhouette Studio Designer version (I am not a Silhouette shareholder ) I downloaded a free building from Scale Scenes http://scalescenes.com/product/r024-weighbridge-or-coal-office/ Import that .pdf file in Silhouette Portrait: In the new opened window, select the resolution ( dpi ) , select "Import as Vector" , UNcheck Group , click on the " Import " button and... by miracle all the cutting and scoring lines are there. I changed the cutting lines color to red. Jacques File-Merge

Problem solved: the confusion is with Inkscape. All the Inkscape .svg type fileS are not created equals.When saving an inkscape file for opening with Silhouette Studio Designer edition , select the PLAIN SVG ( *.svg ) type and not the inkscape SVG (*.svg ) type. This way the object saved in Inkscape will be imported in Silhouette Studio with the correct dimensions. From an Inkscape manual: Plain SVG is the standard SVG without Inkscape-specific markup. Use Plain SVG for best interoperability with other applications that may be used to open the file. Jacques

Thank you raymw for those aditional informations. Now you 1st drawing makes a lot more sense to me. Good idea to make the shortn cuts C1 to C4 for "preorienting" the blade. Those professional cutters ( and blades ) are really impressive. Are you in the cutting machines business ? I contacted silhouette asking them what's the offset of the standard and premium blades. The reply " Hello Jacques, Thank you for your email. Please provide us with more detail information of what you would like to do. We look forward to your email. Thank you, Silhouette Support Team " Of course not the kind of reply I was expecting . Jacques

Ethical question here: I joined one of the the most important french speaking model railroad forum : Loco Revue . There is a huge ( 311 pages so far ) thread about paper and cardboard modelling using cutting machines ( mostly Silhouette Cameo and Portrait ) . The thread starter ( François Pignon ) made some great paper structures. Am I allowed to post here a few pictures from the competition ? For those interested here is a link: http://forum.e-train.fr/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=26005&hilit=toutankarton&start=270

I don't get it. We try to compute the offset x and the first thing you say is to offset the cut by x ??? sounds like a chicken and egg problem to me.

A 80 x 80 mm rectangle drawn using inkscape is imported in Silhouette studio ( designer edition ) as a 64 x 64 mm one. I select the "Import as is "option in the preferences- >import options->SVG menu. Same if I select the "center" option. I was aware of that problem since the day I started to import SVG files, so the first thing I do after importing any .svg file is to resize it. Now , could someone please tell me what's wrong ? Jacques .

my player went on to another one, which adds a bit more information, with some good demonstrations: see Mike Thank you Mike for that instructive video