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Regardless of the machines we use (Brother, Cricut, Silhouette), they are simply hobby plotters, not professional machines. Of course, the plotter's drive mechanism (gear, spindle, belt) also plays a significant role. These factors affect the plotter's price range and accuracy. The smaller the object, the greater the inaccuracies during plotting. These plotters were actually designed for hobby crafting (greeting cards, etc.). A test print with a Cricut Joy showed that even the circle wasn't perfectly closed (offset). The circle diameters were 5mm and 2.5mm. With larger circles, such as those used in 1/72, 1/48, and 1/32 scale, everything was fine. Therefore, I believe that these very small circles are inherently not 100% round due to the design of the hobby plotter. That's why I asked in point 5 whether the object, design, or graphic was large enough and not too small. Should I need such very small circles, I would buy them from the respective mask manufacturers (for example: Omask X8001, X8002, X8003 and many more). The circles start at 1mm.

I think it's not unreasonable to expect better results than that, but I can't really give you any concrete advice, other than to perhaps try some Oramask if you have some. If you can afford to sacrifice the material, it might be worth setting up a series of circles to cut on a single sheet, starting with something fairly large, and then decreasing by increments in size, right down to where you are having problems. Then see if there's a particular size boundary below which you start to see issues. It won't help solve the problem, but will at least give you an indication about whether the issue is related to the size of the circle, or circles in general. If the latter, then there could potentially be an issue with the settings or hardware on the machine. Kev

Here you go Henrik: Settings as mentioned above using Oramask 810.

Those circles are pretty poor, and your expectations are certainly not too high. I choose not to use any of the “helpful” gizmos in the software, I draw all of my shapes from scratch and cut using a single pass, force 6 or 7, and blade depth 5, this all using Oramask 810 only. My Silhouette is now 12 years old so newer models shouldn’t be experiencing these difficulties.

Thanks @GeneK I ended up using a mix of hasegawa single seater eduard masks and some old fashion masking but it came out ok. That's the Revell TF-104G

Actually that is VERY helpful. I searched for something like this yesterday and had no luck (the Omask don't ship to US anymore due to tariffs). Wish they went to 10mm (5mm radius), but I can cut those myself - less noticeable than the inner circles. And yes - it is still useful for other things. Right now I am crating the desk masks for a Tamiya Fletcher 1/350 - I tried to manually mask the paths on the deck (~2mm wide), but couldn't. The new cut masks work perfectly. Will post them soon. Also I am receiving the new 60 degree knifes today - will report back what the results are.

@Henrik I understand your disappointment! But believe me, you can plot other masks, and over time you'll learn a lot more about mask creation, making your masks even more precise. There's no shame in buying such small circles from suppliers. Perhaps this will help you: https://kitmasx.com/search?q=circles&options%5Bprefix%5D=last

Thanks for doing that, Talbot! Really appreciate it. Your results look comparable to mine. I would say it may just be reaching the limits of what the Silhouettes can do (and these are small) with a standard setup. The large magnifications make it looks worse than it is, though I would still only characterize them as "acceptable". For my Hunter I went ahead and used the Paulus Victor 'Dirty Danes' decals I had. I will be building several other RDAF aircrafts, but several of them have bigger roundels (2x) so should be less of a problem. I know there are better machines out there. I wonder if a Cricut will do better? Anyone care to chime in with a test? Please! I will try the new Graphtec knifes I ordered when they get here - hoping they might improve the results. Thanks for everyone's input. Henrik

perfect example Kev it's frustrating sometimes with all the work put into the build, paint and detail then something like that happens ☹️ for me it's two things 1) they used paint on the real things, so using masks looks much better and more authentic representation 2) for the life of me I don't know why but the silvering gods DO NOT LIKE ME

what you have there is much much better results, definitely better I created simple circles at 5mm and 2.5mm, centred them both and then put a small cutout square around them printed two of them on oramask 810 similar to yours, there are slight imperfections on the cut the closer you zoom in, personally nothing that I would be overly worried about i've also been trying to compare the absolute round, initially they looked ok, then perhaps off slightly on the lower right a bit but at this point my eye's are probably done for the day after work and looking back and forth between them isn't helping pics are on a iphone, about an inch off the mask note the 3rd pic is the sections peeled off, thus not correctly centered

Joe, you were typing 810S. Looking at the Orafol site, technical data, it appears that the 810S has ~half the 'sticking' power of 810. It lists 0.5 lb/sq. in. for 810 as opposed to 0.23 /b/sq. in. for 810S.

My first attempts at masking and airbrushing. I'm using a Monogram SBD to practice. I find the Oramask 810S adhesive not very good for holding the stencil on. I have Tamiya sheets, and will print and try again. I also made the mistake of trying to line up a circle mask over the painted circle.

I'm a life long modeler, primarily 1/48 aircraft. I am hoping to us a cutting machine to start painting insignia and marking on scale aircraft. Quality of decals can be hit and miss on new kits, and marginal at best to old vintage kits. Thanks for the add.

Here's the link to the current bargain priced Portrait 4 -- still $129 including shipping. I've owned the range of SIlhouette machines, and the Portrait 4 does all I need as concerns my scale model hobbies. Only wish it had more cutting force since I use it to cut thin plastic ... up to .015", but takes multiple passes. Gene K.

I’d be interested to hear what you think of it Joe. I use a Cameo 2, almost antediluvian in that it’s now 11 years old and doesn’t do many “tricks”, but it’s more than adequate for my mask making.

I ordered the Cameo 5 Alpha, the price difference wasnt great, and I knew I'd regret not getting the better unit.

P-47 Tamiya wheel well mask For masking the main landing wheel wells is they are to be painted after airframe painting. File Information Submitter craig b Submitted 11/27/2025 Category Specific Aircraft View File

Maybe this is old news by now, haven't read all posts in this thread, check out this link I found via a reddit post; https://www.instructables.com/Silhouette-Cameo-4-Crooken-Cutting-Repair/ Jagged "starts" and torn edges suggest the blade is not swiveling as freely as it should be, but the geometry issue could be resolved, hopefully, by the steps in the described procedure.

This is a summary of a build that is going on over on LSP. The kit, produced by Peter Castle of Airscale fame is a mixture of very finely and detailed 3D parts and injection moulded parts, the latter comprising the fuselage, wings, horizontal tailplanes and canopy. At the time of writing, the kit is not yet available, this is an early test kit only. I have produced masks for the two marking options in this kit, R8884 of 183 Squadron and JP843 of 197 Squadron. They are available to download here and here The cockpit "time lapse": Painted, assembled and decalled: Seat belts added and temporarily in place in the fuselage: More later! Max

Thanks Kev, the Typhoon kit is such a pleasure to build. I was afraid that it would be somewhat intimidating with all of Peter’s detail to work with, but it’s so well engineered that it’s quite straightforward.

Glad to see you posting this wonderful build here, Max! It's truly a stunning kit, and you're doing wonderful work on it. Kev

Undercarriage bay, very detailed:

thank @Henrik . I ordered material from McLogan. I printed stencils for the Monogram SDB and tried my first painting. Its a learning process. The underwing insignia came out fine. The white bleeded through fuselage and upper wing stencil. I'll try and touch up, but its probably easier to simply respray with the base coat and start again. I'm using the old Monogram kit as learning tool.

I have the same issue. I found a 15" x 10 yards for $22 + $15 shipping at McLogan Supply - though I didn't order it . Otherwise you are looking at $100 + for a big roll...

Main Deck and Deckhouse Deck Walkway Masks The attached masks is for the deck pathways on the Tamiya 1/350m Fletcher. I had tried to use thin strips of tape, but the curves made it virtually impossible. They are not perfect, but worked well for me - see the images of the painted result. I will be adding camouflage masks soon for the upper part of the ship. I did the lower part manually before I got my cutter - otherwise it would have been prefect for masks! PS: I am NOT a ship guy - so not sure I am using the right terminology! File Information Submitter Henrik Submitted 01/16/2026 Category Boats & Ships View File

Well - that looks better! You are using more force and a much deeper blade (assuming they are comparable) than the other recommendations, and also what I tested. You can see traces of the blade entry, but not nearly as visible as mine. I will definitely have to try again. BTW - just to confirm - that is 10 and 5 mm in Diameter, correct? I re-did some cuts but had to lower the blade depth again back to 3. I also lowered the speed to 1. I might be getting better results, but the circles still seem less round that yours, and I still get an entry tear bigger than yours. I have determined the Oramask 810S produces better results than the Artool Ultra Mask. Would you expect 810 to produce better results than 810S? Seems they would be similar in that aspect? BTW i did receive the Adapter set and was able to try out the ebay Graphtec 09 blades. Does NOT work well. Have to make the blade stick out much more than the Silhouette blade in order to cut, and the cuts are NOT clean. Been doing a lot of research, and getting very mixed messages. Appears the blade holder protrudes more than the standard Autoblade holder, causing issues - but then it is all very confusing, and am pretty much giving up on it. Mozart - can't thank you enough! For now I think I will put it aside, and accept the apparent limitations...

I can subscribe to both of those conditions! 🤪

Hello James. Firstly, the Cameo is more than capable of cutting that, have no fear. What’s more important is the order in which you do the masking/painting. I would: Produce an “empty” mask, ie a mask which is the size of the star which will include the thin border. Put in place and spray the star outline colour, presumably white? Once dry, put the star including the thin outline in place inside the empty mask Weed out the main star and spray red Remove all masking….hopefully a good result! When doing designs which include thin outlines, the trick is to not have to remove the thin part as an individual item because replacing it accurately is not easy! Hope this is understandable and helpful. Max

Greatly appreciate it! There is no hurry of course - but it will be helpful!!!

Away from home at the moment Henrik but will do it as soon as I’m back. Max

Thanks - i was hoping they would be better. However, the circles are very small and imperfections do get magnified when taking close ups. Would it be possible for you to try and cut a 10 mm outer diameter and 5 mm inner diameter circle and check the results (5 and 2.5 mm radius)? It seems others who thought my results were bad got similar results on their machines. It would be very helpful. Thanks!

810S is a different beast to 810, to my mind the latter is the way to go. If you want the mask to go around curves or bends, you need to add a few well placed “cut marks” which will help it to hold the curve. This Typhoon canopy mask shows what I mean along its gently curving edges: Max

I started this build as part of the Messerschmitt Bf 109s & Derivatives Group Build on LSP, and have just wrapped it up. I chose to use the Bulgarian markings supplied in the kit for something different, and am grateful to Dany Boy over on LSP for providing some very useful reference material. It's quite an unusual and striking scheme for a 109! I used the kit decals for the national markings, but sprayed white squares under them using masks I cut on the Silhouette Portrait. While I was there, I cut some for the white 9 numerals on the upper wings and fuselage sides. The black 9s on the lower wings were the kit decals. Some final notes. The engineering of the landing gear attachment on this kit is vaguely clever, but also too fussy, and I screwed up the left side twice, and had to saw off the attachment lug both times and re-attach. Even then, I still managed to create a very slight toe-in of the right wheel. The prop is just sat in place, and doesn't really need gluing unless you plan to move the model around a bit. The exhausts are also a very tight friction-fit, given that I literally had to force them in from the outside! Rigging is EZ Line. Very pleased with how well it turned out for such a low-effort build. ResKit exhausts, Barracuda wheels, and a minor mod to the prop. Paints are a combination of SMS and MRP. Thanks for looking! Kev

I've put together a quick'n'dirty grass mat base for the Trumpeter Emil. Anybody who's ever placed a large scale 109 or Spitfire build onto a glass shelf will be well aware of the dangers of the undercarriage splaying over time - and eventually collapsing altogether. This is really just to prevent that, and like the rest of the build, is deliberately low-effort! Kev

Thanks Timbacat - I think you answered my original question. My expectations were too high... I would point out the RADIUS, not diameter, of the circles were 5mm and 2.5mm - and those are the correct 1/48 scale size of the Danish roundels on the Hawker Hunter since the late 60s (and also on every other RDAF fighter aircraft since - F-100, F-104, Draken and F-16). Fortunately I do have options to get these in decals, and I also really like your idea of buying pre-cut round stencils. I bought the cutter in the hope I could use this for the Danish aircrafts I had planned. There will of course be other uses of it, but still a little disappointing.

I use this too, it works for my purposes. But one small point: the product name is two words, "Ultra Mask". I'm sorry to correct you, I'm not trying to be pedantic, but it's caught me out before, wondering why I can't find any "Ultramask" online.

Looking at the pictures, I can think of six possible causes. 1. Is the firmware faulty? 2. Is the cutting blade still sharp or worn out? 3. Are the current cutting settings correct? Cardboard, paper, vinyl, etc.? 4. Is the correct blade being used? Auto Blade B or another blade? Is the cutting blade compatible with my machine? 5. Is the design too small? 6. Does the cutting mat still have sufficient adhesive strength? It all sounds strange, but these are possible causes for poor cuts. For example: once set my Brother plotter to half cut because I had just cut vinyl. Days later, I needed to cut out an advent calendar for my wife and forgot that the "half cut" setting was selected. Naturally, the cuts were then faulty. I hated the plotter because it wouldn't cut properly anymore. After a cup of tea and coffee, I started troubleshooting and found the problem in the settings. A checkmark was present, which I then removed. And lo and behold: the plotter worked properly again!

no problem, interested to see how you make out with the Graphtec

That is really poor results and yes you should expect much better results IMHO I'm not familiar with the Cameo 5, but I have the Portrait 4 and it cuts precise circles, squares, insignia's, letters, numbers, etc consistently I use Oracal 810 vinyl or tamiya sheets From a settings perspective in Silhouette I do one pass and 1 or 2 depth Seems there's something weird going on for you

Welcome aboard, Pascal! Is there any possibility you could post in English? Unfortunately most of our members don't read French. And for those members, here's a Google translation of Pascal's post: "Hello everyone My name is Pascal, I'm 65 years old, French, and live near Grenoble. I've been a model maker for many years. I mainly build 1/72 scale aircraft, with a particular interest in Free French (FAFL) pilots during World War II. I'm gradually replacing kit decals with stencils made using Silhouette. I'm a beginner with stencils, so I've joined you to learn more. Thank you for the welcome." Kev

that's strange with the oramask 810, it's worked well for me and believe that's what most use as it's not permanent but still has good adhesion

Oramask 810 is my favourite. Some people complain that it shrinks over time if not used on the kit but I have never had that problem. Max

Oramask 810 is more flexible than 830. It is therefore more suitable for model makers.

This is a tricky one. I'd say if you were just buying one for yourself, for use in scale modelling only, then the Portrait would be the way to go. But if you have other family members who want to also use it for all kinds of other tasks, then maybe the Cameo is a better recommendation - especially since the price difference isn't huge (they both seem pretty cheap to me). The Cameo is a much more capable device, certainly in terms of the size and range of materials it can handle, but is also much larger. I think it's overkill for scale model paint masks, but probably a better choice for a wider array of use cases. Kev

For masking if your choosing to paint main landing gear wheel wells after the airframe is painted. Could also be used if you wanted to cut foam blocks and install them to hide the painted wheel wells. Will work with either Bubbletop or Razorback versions of Tamiya's kit

Hawker Typhoon 183 Squadron R8884 These are the masks designed for the Airscale Hawker Typhoon R8884 TF-L of 183 Squadron. The markings are specifically as applied during Exercise Spartan and include the white identifying stripe along the nose. Also masks for wheel centres and wing walkways. File Information Submitter Mozart Submitted 11/27/2025 Category Specific Aircraft View File

Here's the latest. With the help of my son we managed to get the PC and Lightburn to see the laser 😲 Whether I can do anything with it remains to be seen but it appears to be a step forward. More soon.

I recently contacted them too for a different issue and was very impressed with their support. Plain, simple English that even I could understand.

Sorry for the late response, I don't spend as much time here as I should. Microscale's clear film is pretty consistent and that's what I used.