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Like Andy, I've jumped into the custom mask business...

Portrait2_Main-2-1140x372.jpg
 
I'll give a report when I receive it. It seems to be very similar to the Cricut in terms of general layout and operation. I've ordered a roll of Oramask 810 as masking material as I've heard multiple recommendations for that from modelers. I am in the process of repairing Black 1 (tail broke off during shipment) and I'm having trouble cutting a mask for the wave (welle) marking on the tail band. It seems like the Silhouette could make quick work of it but I don't know if I can wait until the cutter arrives... I may give the hand cut mask another shot.
 
The cutting is the easy part. Reproducing the vector files is the challenge for me. If you don't use the canned templates that come with the machine, you're going to need to get reasonably proficient in something like Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw. The machine's graphic interface would need to be fairly sophisticated to produce that Welle pattern from scratch. The Cricut won't do it.

The crosses that I made came off the net and were posted by someone who had already gone through the trouble of creating them as vector files so I just had to tweak them a bit to create formats that the cutter would understand. I'd be interested to hear how you make out and maybe we can start trading files.
 
Luckily, I'm proficient with AutoCAD so I can easily come up with these basic geometric shapes. What pushed me to get the Portrait was that I had already gone through the trouble of scanning the decal sheet with the wave marking and importing that file into AutoCAD. I then traced the shapes in AutoCAD using arcs and lines and then separated out the inner and outer wave markings. This was all done to help me cut the mask manually as it is easier to cut along a black line than it is a solid white decal.

Welle-_Model.jpg


All the time, I kept thinking... I could just save this as a DXF file and let the Portrait do the cutting for me.
 
I learned AutoCAD straight out of college at my first job. 286 computer with no mouse... had to use the scroll keys to move the cursor around! Ah... how time flies! Let me know if you need any help creating a DXF. It's pretty easy for me to utilize scanned decal sheets to trace shapes and save to DXF format.
 
No, I meant if you had trouble creating a certain shape yourself, I could do it for you and send you a DXF to run through your Cricut. But AI will do just as much AutoCAD.
 
john good machine you have really bought, I was looking to buy one in Andorra and I get 100 € with more than in Spain but with the limited space that I have I have to save and make a new desktop PC, which I already have It is too short to be able to move the Siemmens programs.

this is what has now arrived for the moment:

airfix 1/72 heinkel he 111 p2 for gb 37 when he finishes or is almost finishing the mh-60, # A06014
airfix 1/72 bristol blenhein MKIf fighter # A04059
airfix 1/72 boulton paul defaint day fighter # A02069
 
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