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Cutters / Plotters.....


Joe66

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Great thread. I've really been thinking about getting a Silhouette Portrait for making masks of numbers and code letters. For what I'd pay for a few more models that will just go straight into my stash, that may or may not ever make it to the workbench. It's money well spent. My only concern is being a senior is learning how to correctly use it.

 

Joel

Joel,

Your reasoning sounds right to me specially that you'll find out that the silhouette plotters are very useful and can do alot of things. I suggest you download the free version of their software and tinker around with it so you can get a feel for what it is like to design or draw vectors out of photos from the net or scanned images. If you need any help alot of us guys here are willing to give you a hand so do not worry!

Karim

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By the way. I was just discussing with a fellow LSPer though pm the sharing of cutfiles in our community and i told him i posted a topic about it a few years back but i thought the reaction to the topic was kind of lukewarm. I still think with all the talents we have in our community it would be a shame not to share all our creations amongst ourselves. Well i dunno. I'll gladly share my cutfiles if it can be of any help to anyone

Edited by karimb
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   I'm really leaning towards the Portrait model. 

 

  Like I said, my main goal for now is just being able to make masks of the 1/32 decals I need for National insignias, letters and numbers. The rest will come from the decal sheet. Since I'm scanning in a 1:1 copy of the just the appropriate parts of the decals sheet without any artwork, I'm assuming that I won't need to resize anything.   Slowly I'll tackle more varied subjects as needed.

 

Joel

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I have a Cameo (first version) but have only cut a few things on it so far.

I recently cut some wheel masks and it worked very precisely. The discs

were right on.  You can size dimensions to the thousandths of an inch or

hundredths of a millimeter. I've used the Tamiya sheets cuz they're easier

to handle (for me) than rolls.

I've had an idea :o that I haven't tried yet but think it should work just fine

and be quite useful. I have some sheets of white decal paper that I plan to

tape to a flat surface and paint with whatever colors I need and cut decals

from that. No carrier film, I can modulate, filter or whatever, either before

cutting or after they're on the model. For example, paint 25% of the sheet

red, 25% blue, yellow, leave 25% white. From that sheet I could cut sets of

British roundels. Paint a sheet light grey or Sky and do all my RAF codes

from that. In other words, paint the decal sheet instead of masking the model

itself and then painting. You get the idea.

The best advice I would offer is go to Youtube. There are shiploads of videos

on these machines. Also on how to mess with vector images. Almost all of

them are by girls talking about crafty girl things but you can learn alot of the

basics there.

 

funfunfun !! :thumbsup:

Edited by MikeMaben
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Awesome thread.  I only just heard about the Cameo Silhouette last week and now it's on the top of my 'must have' list.  I would mainly use it for insignias and larger markings as I can't imagine weeding out a plethora of tiny pieces that would come with small stencils.

 

I have a lot of kits with yellowed and untrustworthy decals.  Plus...I hate silvering! 

 

I just watched about 45 minutes of tutorials.  It doesn't seem all that difficult.  Of course...  the proof would be in accomplishing.

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By the way. I was just discussing with a fellow LSPer though pm the sharing of cutfiles in our community and i told him i posted a topic about it a few years back but i thought the reaction to the topic was kind of lukewarm. I still think with all the talents we have in our community it would be a shame not to share all our creations amongst ourselves. Well i dunno. I'll gladly share my cutfiles if it can be of any help to anyone

 

 

I'm happy to supply anyone with insignia files in vector format

 

I would be willing to share my stuff as well. If others were interested, I even have a VPS server where we could set up FTP or forum based point of access.

 

If there were enough interest, I'd even be willing to do a Webex session on Illustrator basics. I think I have 25 seats on my webex account. Maybe one of you other cats that run the Silhouette software could even be a guest host.

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I have a Cameo (first version) but have only cut a few things on it so far.

I recently cut some wheel masks and it worked very precisely. The discs

were right on.  You can size dimensions to the thousandths of an inch or

hundredths of a millimeter. I've used the Tamiya sheets cuz they're easier

to handle (for me) than rolls.

I've had an idea :o that I haven't tried yet but think it should work just fine

and be quite useful. I have some sheets of white decal paper that I plan to

tape to a flat surface and paint with whatever colors I need and cut decals

from that. No carrier film, I can modulate, filter or whatever, either before

cutting or after they're on the model. For example, paint 25% of the sheet

red, 25% blue, yellow, leave 25% white. From that sheet I could cut sets of

British roundels. Paint a sheet light grey or Sky and do all my RAF codes

from that. In other words, paint the decal sheet instead of masking the model

itself and then painting. You get the idea.

The best advice I would offer is go to Youtube. There are shiploads of videos

on these machines. Also on how to mess with vector images. Almost all of

them are by girls talking about crafty girl things but you can learn alot of the

basics there.

 

funfunfun !! :thumbsup:

 

Try it.The worst that could happen is the paint might flake instead of cut.

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   I'm really leaning towards the Portrait model. 

 

  Like I said, my main goal for now is just being able to make masks of the 1/32 decals I need for National insignias, letters and numbers. The rest will come from the decal sheet. Since I'm scanning in a 1:1 copy of the just the appropriate parts of the decals sheet without any artwork, I'm assuming that I won't need to resize anything.   Slowly I'll tackle more varied subjects as needed.

 

Joel

 

You should not assume the scanner will scan precisely 1:1 although it should. I don't know about the Silhouette software but in Illustrator you can draw it any size and then plug in the width or height you want and it will scale it for you.

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painting a decal sheet and then cutting works, i did it before. i always let the cutter do multiple images to pic the best one if paint flakes off. another issue is the paint build up on the sheet, this can get pretty thick. obviously water based paints are difficult to use (decals vs water), so i used spray bomb automotive paint.

Edited by blackbetty
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I've been using my Roland Camm One which is pretty old now for cutting vinyl mainly for signage when I used to do it for work and as far as software goes I've used the CADlink's Signlab Pro for vectorising and cutting the vector images and fonts on the plotter. For those who are in Australia and maybe interested where to buy material I get all my material from Graphic Art Mart they have a shop in nearly every state now.

 

But this silhouette Cameo print and cut machine sounds pretty good I wouldn't mind buying one myself as I want to tackle making some masks and stencils (MiG-29AS 0921) for the new Trumpeter MiG-29A that's coming out soon.

 

Plus, for those that have actually made their own decals how good are these home-made decals do they stand the length of time you know adhere good onto the model and not fade assuming you don't put it in direct sunlight

 

So where can we buy this decal stencil sheets? does anyone have a name of any supply shop here in Australia or online that sells them?

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Totally awesome thread....I'm glad I asked ! Yep....looks like one of these cutters is in my future !

 

The file sharing idea is great...would love to see that happen....it would be most beneficial for all, especially those new to this.

 

Another example of this community being the absolute Best group around !!

 

 

 

Thanks,

Joe

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Good to know, that so many here are happy with their mask cutters. So I'll most probably buy one myself.

 

That file sharing idea is absolutely great. If (when) I have vector files available, I'll be happy to supply them to you guys!

 

Cheers

Rainer

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I'm happy to supply anyone with insignia files in vector format

 

Jennings,

  Thanks for the offer. I'll sure be taking you up on the offer when I get to that point.  

 

  Not only do I need the cutter, but I need to buy a printer as well. My old one died a few years ago, and I've never had any reason to buy a new one until now. Not looking to spend more then $100 max on a printer as the only use I'll have for it is in the mask creating process.

 

Joel

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