mammut08 Posted October 18, 2013 Share Posted October 18, 2013 (edited) HI All, I recently purchased a Silhouette Portrait craft cutter and, of course, I had to use it as soon as it arrived. As a test subject, I have chosen Wilhelm Hippert's Fokker D.VIIF. I used the native software to trace a scan of the "Mimmi." lettering on the top wing and then cut a stencil using a sheet of Tamiya masking material. Unfortunately, in my excitement to use my new toy, I failed to take pictures, but here are the results. I sourced the lozenge decals from Aviattic. These look fantastic. Rib tape was post-shaded with Tamiya smoke and both upper and lower surfaces where given a burnt umber filter. Finally, the whole thing was sealed with Vallejo satin clear coat. Here are a couple of pictures. I'm now going to get started on the cockpit and follow the instructions in order. Build updates will follow and I will fully illustrate the application of the Aviattic decals to the lower wings, as well as using the craft cutter to generate masks for the black and white checker board pattern on the fuselage. I do have a question for those of you who have build one of these kits already. Does anyone know if the completed cockpit interior will slide into place in an assembled fuselage from the front? This would make masking the fuselage much easier. Thanks for stopping buy and everyone keep up the good work. Dave Edited December 20, 2013 by mammut08 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
petrov27 Posted October 18, 2013 Share Posted October 18, 2013 Looks good - great start! Concerning sliding the interior in after assembling the fuse; I did this on my build, but had only glued the top of the fuse at that point (really glue it well) - the interior framework was a very, very tight fit - I ended up sanding the seat bulkhead part quite a bit on the edges in order to get it to slide back in there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_K2 Posted October 18, 2013 Share Posted October 18, 2013 Looking real good so far. I'll be eyeballing this one for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tnarg Posted October 18, 2013 Share Posted October 18, 2013 The wings are beautiful, but the question that comes up next concerns the cutter. What resolution might you obtain in cutting masks? Any more details on how you created them? Was it as simple as scanning and having a program trace the outline? That could be a very interesting tool if it lets us do new things like this.... Tnarg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SinuheH Posted October 18, 2013 Share Posted October 18, 2013 That looks GREAT! ave fun with the Silhouette - its a neat tool! PS - Look forward to the rest of the build - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Kevin Posted October 18, 2013 Share Posted October 18, 2013 Yeah, looks great! I can't believe you applied paint masks over the top of the lozenge decals! Do you have a link to some information about the cutter? Kev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolf Buddee Posted October 19, 2013 Share Posted October 19, 2013 Wonderful job on masking and painting the "Mimmi" logo on the upper wing. Looks fantastic Dave! Regarding the installation of the cockpit framing through the fuselage front, having finished the DVII myself recently, I'd say that sounds like a recipe for disaster. Just sayin'. Everything within the cockpit framing, which is not that strong, has to be aligned exactly right, especially at the front or the engine will not sit right. Forcing the assembly in to the fuselage will be a very tight fit and it wouldn't take much to distort the assembly. That will definitely cause you much grief later on. Everything from engine cowl fit to exhaust alignment will be effected. I suppose it could work but I personally wouldn't want to chance it. Good luck with it though if you want to try that route. Cheers, Wolf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mammut08 Posted October 19, 2013 Author Share Posted October 19, 2013 Hi All, Thank you for the comments. Wolf and Petrov, thank you for the advice. It looks like I will follow the instructions. I was just hoping to be able to mask the checker board on the fuselage without having to worry about covering the cockpit/engine framing. Tnarg and Kevin, I think the craft cutter (http://www.silhouetteamerica.com/) will handle most of our needs in 1/72, 1/48 and 1/32. It does have issues with very, very small radii, but I have cut some fancy fonts with it in as well. It does just fine with Blockschrift and Amarillo fonts in 1/32 scale, so USAF and Luftwaffe codes are fairly easy. In fact, the Blockschrift font I found on line comes with both early and late national insignia, so designing bomber codes with national insignia as a single stencil is easy. It should cut most national insignia with no problems as well. The native software, however, kinda sucks and is a bit glitchy, but then I am still figuring out how to use it - there is a "pro" version available from the web site for $50. I believe it will read files exported from Corel Draw, but I have not done so yet. I have read that the pro version will read autocad files. To generate the stencil for "Mimmi", I started with an image I a grabbed of the web, loaded it into photoshop and erased the lozenge pattern and other wing detail from the image. I then pulled the modified jpg into the Silhouette software and used the trace command to create the cutting file. From there, its just a matter of choosing a masking medium. Tamiya masking sheets and frisket cut just fine. That said, you get what you pay for and at $150 from Amazon and ebay, this is definitely not a top of the line cutter, but I think it will work great for me for most things. My guess is that the issues you might run into will not be with the cutter, but instead with finding the correct fonts (anyone know what fonts to use for Luftwaffe werk nummers?) and importing patterns designed in applications such as autocad, corel draw or adobe illustrator. If enough of us were to purchase these machines, it would make sense to set up a dropbox and create an on-line library of shared cutting files. Cheers, Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Kevin Posted October 19, 2013 Share Posted October 19, 2013 Thanks for the info Dave. I've discovered that these machines are available in Australia, but all the cheap outlets are out of stock. I found one available for sale at $300, but I'll be giving that a miss. The Portrait looks like a good unit, and comes with a Mac version of the software too. Something to save up for! Kev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mammut08 Posted October 19, 2013 Author Share Posted October 19, 2013 Hi Kevin, Ebay Australia has them for $160 Au. Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Kevin Posted October 19, 2013 Share Posted October 19, 2013 Hi Kevin, Ebay Australia has them for $160 Au. Dave Wow, got a link? I searched on eBay, and the only ones that came up were shipping from the US. When I restricted the search to 'located in Australia', there were no results. Kev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mammut08 Posted October 19, 2013 Author Share Posted October 19, 2013 (edited) I'm having issues copying the lik with my iPhone, but I went here: http://m.ebay.com.au And used these search terms: "silhouette portrait" Hope this helps Dave Edit: I should have paid closer attention to your post - now that I look again, I think we are seeing the same items, bummer. Edited October 19, 2013 by mammut08 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Kevin Posted October 19, 2013 Share Posted October 19, 2013 I'm having issues copying the lik with my iPhone, but I went here: http://m.ebay.com.au And used these search terms: "silhouette portrait" Hope this helps Dave Thanks Dave. Unfortunately this just turns up the same couple that I found, shipping from the US. Sticker price is good, but shipping is not! Plus, I couldn't be sure that it would be plug'n'play over here (our electricity system works on 240v). Kev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alburymodeler Posted October 19, 2013 Share Posted October 19, 2013 None showing up in Australia currently Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mammut08 Posted December 13, 2013 Author Share Posted December 13, 2013 Hi All, It's been a while and school has gotten in the way a bit. On the upside, after much work, I have a grad student about to graduate. Anyway, I have found some time over the past couple of weeks to work on Mimmi. I did not document the construction of the cockpit - this has been done many times over by others. Here are a few in progress photos. It was touch and go for a while, but the build is turning out much better than I expected. A shot of the rear bulkhead - Flory Models washes rock! I shot a little Tamiya smoke along the lower cockpit walls to simulate castor oil staining and a little thinned dirty brown oil paint completes the effect. The Fuselage of Hippert's plane was covered in a black and white checkerboard. To achieve this finish I first painted the fuselage white. I then designed a cutter profile that was simply a 9.5 mm grid and used my craft cutter to cut a sheet of Tamiya masking material into squares - if you set the cutter correctly, you cut just the masking material and not the backing, making it very easy to use. I then covered the fuselage with the square masks and when finished I removed every other square to create the checkerboard pattern. The photos below show the result. Just some minor touch-up here and there and I am off to whatever I decide is next. Thanks for looking and everyone keep up the good work. Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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