I am looking for a way to create masks for custom painting. I have come across a DIY Cutting Machine called the Silhouette Cameo 4. https://www.silhouette101.com/archives/introduction-to-silhouette-cameo-4 Is anyone here familiar with this? I would create a drawing in CorelDraw and then transfer it to the cutter to cut sheet masking tape that is made for masking models.
Only by reputation/youtube. I am trying to get to a point where I learn to use a scan-n-cut cm 350. Early attempt was unsuccessful. Had to postpone learning so as not to fall behind with ongoing projects(s). If you have not yet purchased, do a comparison from different users. This idea seems worthwhile. However, I will not be much practical help. I think other members input here will assist you. Good luck.
A local sign shop might be an option, if you don't need a continuous supply. Grant Eastman of "Southern Alberta Rail" had a local sign shop do a few sheets of vinyl masks for the distinctive sar markings behind the cabs of their modern diesels. That order netted more masks than he'll probably ever need. Here's a Scott Stutzman photo of the engines using those sign shop masks. I had operated on the sar layout during a visit to Calgary in 2006--Grant's a great guy and his layout runs extremely smoothly. Sadly, my only photos of the layout don't show the modern paint scheme. My photos documented extreme cold weather testing of some D&RGW SD40T-2s:
You can find lots of videos of people using the Cricut cutters. They are around $250 at craft stores, and you can cut anything from fabrics and paper to masking tape laid down on sheets of plastic to make your paint masks. Beware, the wife and kids will quickly take over this machine: Cricut Cutters
I own a Cricut and have done a few sets of car sides in styrene. I don’t know much about the Cameo, but they are equally matched in terms of cutting paper and vinyl. Cricut has some features that the Silhouette brand doesn’t and vice versa, but if you are looking to cut fabric or do embossing, go Cricut. Cricut makes 3 stickiness levels for their cutting mat, the bed that moves the material around, so make sure you have the right one. The standard one that comes with the machine is a little too sticky for paper: it gets stuck and rips, leaving patches on the mat; should be fine for vinyl though.
Hi Mr Trainiac, I scratch-build a lot of N scale structures, mainly using Evergreen styrene and styrene door/window fittings. I've thought about using a Cricut to cut the walls, including accurately cutting the holes for doors and windows, but I've not been able to found out much about how well it handles styrene up to 0.040" or even 0.060". Can you please tell me which Cricut you have and how well it performs with styrene.
I have a Cricut Explore One. Some of the other Explore series as well as the Maker have two tool heads, but the Explore One is fine for me because I just need to cut, not draw or use any other features. I have only cut .010" and .020" thick styrene, but prefer my car sides on .010" sheet. I use two passes to cut .010" sheet with the setting on 'Stencil Film .4mm'. I have not attempted to cut .040" or .060" inch, but I doubt that that it would work well. Cricut makes a Deep Cut Blade, but I don't know if .060" will even fit under the positioning rollers. The blade presses down onto the material, but I don't know if the Cricut machine will understand that it is cutting a sheet with that significant of a thickness and it might damage the blade, even with the Deep Cut feature. You would have to do a ton of passes, but I will say that multiple passes have no problem with register issues: they line up every time. Just don't remove the bed before the second pass. When you reload it, it won't be exactly the same and will not line up again. On the Cricut website, the maximum thickness that will fit in the machine is 2 mm for the Explore and 2.4 mm for the Maker, but they also say that it is dependent on the material rigidity too, and styrene is about as rigid as it gets, so that 'maximum thickness' is probably reduced for harder materials. Thick materials like leather and burlap are probably what they are referring to because they can still be compressed under the blade and rollers.
So I ended up with an Explore Air 2. It cuts stock items nicely. I'm having an issue with my custom designed objects. I use CorelDraw to design my shape and then transfer it to Cricut Design Space. That all goes well. For some reason a rectangular box gets added around my art and that is the only object that gets cut not the object that I designed. Can anyone here help?
What filetype is being uploaded? Sometimes if you upload an image like JPG, the Cricut thinks you are printing it out and then putting it in the Cricut to cut out the border. Keep in mind, the Cricut was designed for scrapbooking/crafts and doesn’t always know what we want it to do. Make sure you are uploading the correct file and that the thing you want cut out is a solid color. (For example: if I upload an outline of a car side, but the inside fill color is left blank/white, the Cricut will read the thickness of the black line border and make two cuts like a very thin outline, rather than one object. If the line thickness and fill color match, it will treat it like one object and not like a hollow tracing.
We (CFO and myself) have a Silhouette Cameo (ver1) and it is great. With a JPG on studio (their software) I have to select it and then perform a trace outline (either outside or outside and inside). this will then allow me to remove the JPG and only have the cut lines. From there you can normally modify the cut points/lines. Unfortunately I do not have the Cricut as the original was all to proprietary to using cartridges. Not sure if the above helps. If you software does not have this option I will be more than willing to help. Also not to hijack, I would second and third to more SAR.
