Text Issues with Silhouette Studio

[Kevin Futter]

Some of you will be aware of my 3D-printed BOMARC build happening on LSP. I'm at the point where I need to create some paint masks for its various markings, but have hit a bit of a wall with regard to creating the required US Air Force text. Creating the text itself was easy enough: just download the required Amarillo font and get the sizing close enough. The problem started when I tried to create the thin border that needs to go around most of the text. I used Silhouette Studio's 'offset' function to create the narrow border to produce what you see in the image below:

 

 

The problem is that only the offset border gets cut! The internal lines are ignored completely. Then I read somewhere that if I use the "release compound path" function, I can separate out the internal elements (bottom example in the image above). This worked, but I had the same issue with the internal lines not cutting (i.e., the open elements in A and R).

 

So, I'm at an impasse now. Ideally I'd like the upper version to cut with all lines in situ, but have no idea how to get Silhouette Studio to recognise all lines as cut lines. Can anyone offer any suggestions?

 

Kev

[Kevin Futter]

I managed to figure this one out for myself: basically, the settings in the "Send" panel had defaulted to 'cut edges' without me realising it, and making sure that it was set to 'cut' instead, fixed that particular problem:

 

 

However, the cut still had some issues, with lots of lifting and displacement of the cut shapes:

 

 

I'm not sure if this is completely salvageable to be honest, but also don't know what caused it, or how to prevent it happening again. I suspect I might be better served printing these particular examples as decals, rather than masks.

 

Kev

[zaxos345]

Kev, i am new to this, i recieved the portrait 2 days ago and still exloring, but may be you have to reduse the ''force'' or the ''speed''?? 

 

John

[WoodyV]

5 hours ago, Kevin Futter said:

I'm not sure if this is completely salvageable to be honest, but also don't know what caused it, or how to prevent it happening again.

 

Same problem here and I've come to the conclusion that it's the nature of the beast. The adhesive appears to stick to the blade and pulls the film up. Once this starts it leaves some adhesive residue on the blade exasperating the issue. Every time I try to cut a mask, it's another problem that has to be resolved, what worked yesterday isn't necessarily going to work today. 

My only suggestion would be to inspect the blade for even the tiniest hint of adhesive residue to worse, bits of the mask, or try a new blade. The other suggestion would be to reduce the depth of the cut. Do you see evidence that the blade has cut into the backing paper? if so, how much? If it appears distinct, try reducing the depth. It should be faint.

 

But none of this addresses the issue of the inconsistency of the adhesive, which has been an ongoing frustration and discussed many times. My last batch of 810's adhesive was very aggressive and left residue on the model. Then I tried 810S and its adhesive was so weak it would hardly stick to the model. There's just so many variables that seemingly change for no logical reason, it's enough to drive a man to drink.

 

Plan B (decals) is a less frustrating alternative. Good luck.

[Kevin Futter]

Thanks for your input, fellas. A bit of adhesive build-up on the blade certainly makes some sense, as it only has to happen once for the problem to be self-compounding. All my other cuts on that same sheet so far have been fine in that respect, and it's only the latest cut involving the thin border that seemed to trigger the issue. I'll take a look at the blade in the morning and check it for detritus. Stand by!

 

Kev

[GeneK]

The blade is dragging the Oramask off its backing while it's cutting, as suggested. Woody has some great pointers.

 

When the outside edges are cut, the Oramask is well tacked down around the cut, but when the inside edges are cut, there is not much stick to anchor the Oramask against the drag of the blade, so the cut shape is pushed, especially around sharp corners. You can avoid some of that by selecting Line Segment Overcut in the dialog box where speed, force, etc is set -- it's under "More", as is Track Enhancing (which may also help). However, on very small text, Overcut could cut too far into the mask, actually cutting pieces off.

 

If the problem persists, the best bet, I think, is to cut the inside and outside as separate masks and then layer them. 

For very small text, decals are the way to go.

 

Gene K

[Kevin Futter]

Woody pointed me to the following article, where point #1 seemed to be the best fit for what I'm experiencing:

 

https://silhouetteamerica.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/35000206362-vinyl-lifting-off-backing-during-cut-job

 

So the first thing I did was check the blade, and lo and behold, there was a big ole chunk of vinyl stuck to the assembly:

 

 

This was from the immediately preceding cut job, however, and not the cause of the original problem.

 

The next thing I did was slow the speed down to the lowest setting as suggested in the article, and use the 'test' function to see if the triangle-in-a-square was behaving properly - and it was not. So I slowed ratcheted the blade depth up a notch and tried again, but initially couldn't get the test cut to locate properly (hence the cut lines in the mat in the photo below). After sorting that out and doing a successful test cut,  I decided to try printing the design, and if anything, the result was worse:

 

 

At this point I'm going to abandon this approach, as even if it's solvable, I don't feel like wasting the time and vinyl on it. Instead, since the outside border needs to be white, I'm going to use the successful outside cuts I've already done to paint in the white, and then use the inside designs to print decals to go over the white painted sections. As long as the decals print at the correct size relative to the masks (and I locate them properly on the model!), it should do the job.

 

Thanks everyone for your input!

 

Kev

[Kevin Futter]

Well, blade depth certainly wasn't the issue, as when I pulled the vinyl off the cutting mat, I discovered that in some areas it had cut right through both the vinyl and the backing sheet!

 

Kev

[Wuger91]

Hello

 

For this type of material (Oramask 810), use Depth 1, Force 10, Speed 5.

As a reminder, each depth of the graduation corresponds to 0.1 mm. The Oramask 810 has a thickness of 0.08 mm.

Edited September 21 by Wuger91

[Mozart]

What size are these letters Kev? 3mm is just about the threshold I reckon for successful stencils with Silhouette. I agree with Gene, I’d do them as two separate masks.  Sounds like you’ve increased your blade depth rather than reducing it, I’d go with Wuger’s settings but with a Force of 6.

Max 

[Kevin Futter]

14 hours ago, Wuger91 said:

For this type of material (Oramask 810), use Depth 1, Force 10, Speed 5.

 

Yeah, they were the settings I used for the first attempt. They've worked pretty well up until now for simple outline masks, but not so much when I introduced the very thin border. I also discovered that there were sections that hadn't cut through at all - especially around the S characters. Hence my increasing the blade depth a notch.

 

Kev

[Kevin Futter]

8 hours ago, Mozart said:

What size are these letters Kev? 3mm is just about the threshold I reckon for successful stencils with Silhouette. I agree with Gene, I’d do them as two separate masks.  Sounds like you’ve increased your blade depth rather than reducing it, I’d go with Wuger’s settings but with a Force of 6.

Max 

 

They're not super small, Max, being around 6mm in overall height. The border though is a fraction of a mm, and it seems the root cause of the issue is that there's not enough surface area underneath them to maintain adhesive contact with the backing sheet. I'm going to try the hybrid approach on a mule, and see how well it works.

 

Kev

[Mozart]

I understand completely your problem Kev, had the same issue with swastikas with narrow white outlines in the past which is why I went for the two mask solution. 
 

 

 

 

[GazzaS]

On 9/22/2023 at 4:33 PM, Mozart said:

I understand completely your problem Kev, had the same issue with swastikas with narrow white outlines in the past which is why I went for the two mask solution. 
 

 

 

 

 

I like your technique for the most part, but it's easy to see that alignment is difficult.   Unfortunately, I'm dealing with this issue now.

 

1ManArmy masks don't seem to suffer from this issue.  Their masks are re-usable paper masks which cover every stencil and marking on the plane.  Is there any paper masking material out there for the hobbyist?

 

Looking on Google shows some opportunities for paper masking materials with backing...   but which one to choose?

 

 

 

[Kevin Futter]

On 10/31/2023 at 1:18 PM, GazzaS said:

 

I like your technique for the most part, but it's easy to see that alignment is difficult.   Unfortunately, I'm dealing with this issue now.

 

1ManArmy masks don't seem to suffer from this issue.  Their masks are re-usable paper masks which cover every stencil and marking on the plane.  Is there any paper masking material out there for the hobbyist?

 

Looking on Google shows some opportunities for paper masking materials with backing...   but which one to choose?

 

 

 

 

Tamiya does sell its famous masking material in flat sheets, but I haven't been able to get hold of any so far. I'm currently waiting for BNA to get them back in stock.

 

Kev

[GazzaS]

12 hours ago, Kevin Futter said:

 

Tamiya does sell its famous masking material in flat sheets, but I haven't been able to get hold of any so far. I'm currently waiting for BNA to get them back in stock.

 

Kev

 

I have ordered some non-modelling specific material available here in Aus.  If I have any success with it, I'll post.  Might be wasted money.  I have heard the Tamiya stuff has been unavailable forever.

[Kevin Futter]

2 minutes ago, GazzaS said:

I have heard the Tamiya stuff has been unavailable forever.

 

That would be a shame if it's OOP. Please let us know how you get on with the new stuff!

 

Kev

[denders]

I see that Ammo has something that appears similar. I don't know anything about it, though. SB shows Out of Stock for the Tamiya sheets.

[GazzaS]

Hi again.  This test was done with ALTENEW brand masking paper.  Got it from a place in Tasmania...  That's where my wife comes from too, incidentally. 

 

Anyway...  

     The first cut was far from promising.

 

I made 8 examples and decided to push through and see if I could make a decent representation of the text I needed.

 

 

After weeding, my mask looked like this:

was

I didn't do a perfect job of weeding, and I think my my blade setting of (1) might have been better at (1.5)...   if you can set it there.   Now...  I have never messed with the cutting settings of my silhouette portrait.  Everything is still the way it came out of the box.

 

Here is it painted on a very new paint mule.

My poor weeding shows, but you can see that my hasty job isn't too different from the decal below. 

 

The main difference between the paper stencil used here and the Oramask 810 I use for everything else, is the superior tackiness of the paper mask.  When I cut the 8 examples in Oramask, every triangle from the number Four ended up in the little cylinder holding the knife blade.  And they weren't tacky enough to

hold on in the face of airbrushing.  Whereas the center of the numbers and letters of the paper masks were tacky enough to be attached to the model after the main body of the mask, and stand up to airbrushing.

 

I've included the ruler for scale...  But I think I can count this as a minor victory.  If anyone can give me some ideas about messing with the cutting settings...  I'm all ears.

 

 

[GeneK]

I'm not familiar with the masking material you used, but the Portrait should certainly have done a sharper cut. In that regard, you can't set 1.5 depth on an autoblade (assuming you are using one), but in any event, you can/should play with the force/depth combination to dial in your particular material. For fine tuning, you can also "fiddle" with Line Segment Overcut, Track Enhancing, and Intelligent Path Technology (if you have a Portrait 4).

 

As for Oramask, it will lose some stick (and shrink somewhat) as it ages, especially if not stored properly, but it sounds like your Portrait is new, so I assume your Oramask is also new.  As for alternatives to Oramask, I've tried other  masking materials, and have found Tamiya the best (but I "stick" with Oramask).

 

Lastly,  I assume your blade is new ... and that you've checked that there are no cutting fragments in the blade holder.

 

Gene K

[GazzaS]

7 hours ago, GeneK said:

I'm not familiar with the masking material you used, but the Portrait should certainly have done a sharper cut. In that regard, you can't set 1.5 depth on an autoblade (assuming you are using one), but in any event, you can/should play with the force/depth combination to dial in your particular material. For fine tuning, you can also "fiddle" with Line Segment Overcut, Track Enhancing, and Intelligent Path Technology (if you have a Portrait 4).

 

As for Oramask, it will lose some stick (and shrink somewhat) as it ages, especially if not stored properly, but it sounds like your Portrait is new, so I assume your Oramask is also new.  As for alternatives to Oramask, I've tried other  masking materials, and have found Tamiya the best (but I "stick" with Oramask).

 

Lastly,  I assume your blade is new ... and that you've checked that there are no cutting fragments in the blade holder.

 

Gene K

 

Thank you for the tips.  I'm not a prolific mask maker by any stretch and I've had my Silhouette machine for 2 or three years.   I'll play with it next time I get a chance and see if I can't get a better result.  If playing with it doesn't help, I'll attach my spare blade.  I'm thinking, the best way to do these fine masks would be a laser cutter.  But I know next to nothing about them and have seen a wide variety in pricing.  One thing I learned in watching videos yesterday, is that you can't use many materials because the heat causes toxic off-gassing in some...   so no oramask.

[Mozart]

I’d be very happy with the results you’ve achieved Gaz, especially when you compare yours against the decal. Gene is right about the settings…..blade depth, force in particular and number of passes are all important considerations. I wouldn’t know what force to use on your paper masks, I usually set mine to “6” for Oramask 810 but I imagine for paper it would be slightly less? I must investigate paper masks. 
Max