Silhouette Cameo 3 cutter?

[Cajonpassfan]

Anyone here have any experience with the new Cameo 3 cutter? The reviews are all over the place, and none I could find by model railroaders. Useful for styrene sheet? Up to what thickness? Wood sheet?
The street price is about $250, not cheap but perhaps potentially very useful for building structures and passenger car sides?
Thoughts appreciated.
Otto K.

[arbomambo]

We have one (as well as a 'Cricket"); Denise is a scrapbooker, but I haven't used it yet in a model railroad application (although I'm anxious to try)
Aaron Bearden (Chessie System Fan) has volunteered to show me next time he visits...I understand that it can cut .010 styrene
~Bruce

[mplsjct]

My wife has the Wishblade, which I assume is similar. It cannot cut through thick styrene, but it can score it perfectly, which is beneficial for scratchbuilding. You can probably use the scoring to simulate brick detail, but
I prefer to overlay brick sheeting.

I use Illustrtor to create my designs, then export a .dxf and import that into the Wishblade software.

If you have ever scratchbuilt, and manually measured and cut window/door openings, you know how tedious it is, the cutter saves a lot of time by scoring the styrene, end eliminating the tedious part.

[Mark W]

I use my Cameo all the time.  From clean cutting thin styrene (.010") for detail parts, deep scoring thicker styrene for all other scratch building, especially repeating shappes, even cutting paper and masking tape to help mask complex shapes for painting. 

For Model Railroading, there's not many differences between the original Cameo and the Cameo 3.  Both use the same Studio Software for designing cuts.  The 3 is equipped with "PixScan", basically a scanner to automatically plot cuts based on a physical drawing.  I'm not sure how that could be a benefit to Model Railroading, but maybe.

One thing to note, marketing boasts 'thicker cutting" for the Cameo 3.  That's great, but it does come with a draw back.  By design, the cutting tip is more of a wedge than a blade, to help the cutting edge rotate as the cutting head translates around the material.  For thicker styrene, this means material is not so much "cut" as it is "pushed" out of the way, making a v-groove and curling up ridges on the edge of either side.
This means you loose some precision the deeper you cut, and will need to perform a post cut edge treatment to remove the curled edge.
I found that cutting two .020" styrene parts and laminating them together is easier and more precise than trying to cut one .040" piece. 

In any case, as much as I use it for, I rank the Cameo one of my top 5 best hobby purchases of all time. 
 

[peteski]

I use my Cameo all the time.  From clean cutting thin styrene (0.10") for detail parts,

I assume that is 0.010"?

[Mark W]

Oops.  Yes, fixed it.

[Cajonpassfan]

I use my Cameo all the time.  From clean cutting thin styrene (.010") for detail parts, deep scoring thicker styrene for all other scratch building, especially repeating shappes, even cutting paper and masking tape to help mask complex shapes for painting. 

For Model Railroading, there's not many differences between the original Cameo and the Cameo 3.  Both use the same Studio Software for designing cuts.  The 3 is equipped with "PixScan", basically a scanner to automatically plot cuts based on a physical drawing.  I'm not sure how that could be a benefit to Model Railroading, but maybe.

One thing to note, marketing boasts 'thicker cutting" for the Cameo 3.  That's great, but it does come with a draw back.  By design, the cutting tip is more of a wedge than a blade, to help the cutting edge rotate as the cutting head translates around the material.  For thicker styrene, this means material is not so much "cut" as it is "pushed" out of the way, making a v-groove and curling up ridges on the edge of either side.
This means you loose some precision the deeper you cut, and will need to perform a post cut edge treatment to remove the curled edge.
I found that cutting two .020" styrene parts and laminating them together is easier and more precise than trying to cut one .040" piece. 

In any case, as much as I use it for, I rank the Cameo one of my top 5 best hobby purchases of all time. 
 

Thanks Mark. So should I just get Cameo 1....it doesn't seem much cheaper and the 3 blade has an auto setting. But yeah, I want clean cuts, not what you describe in thicker styrene....
So, really, how steep is the learning curve?
Appreciate your comments.
Otto K.

[Mark W]

Hey Otto, 

To clarify, the cutting characteristics will be the same on all versions.  Performance should be pretty close across the board, so I would go for the cheapest option, unless you or a significant other wishes to do other crafts which may benefit from the updated features.  (I used mine to "hand write" dozens of customer Christmas cards last year.)

Silhouette Stuido is a very easy to use program.  I was cutting within about an hour after unboxing.

[Cajonpassfan]

Hey Otto, 

To clarify, the cutting characteristics will be the same on all versions.  Performance should be pretty close across the board, so I would go for the cheapest option, unless you or a significant other wishes to do other crafts which may benefit from the updated features.  (I used mine to "hand write" dozens of customer Christmas cards last year.)

Silhouette Stuido is a very easy to use program.  I was cutting within about an hour after unboxing.

Thanks Mark, appreciate the first hand feedback!
Otto K.

[Cajonpassfan]

Mark, one more question please: nowhere can I find anything about resolution; how small an precise does it get?
For example, if I wanted to cut a tape mask for lettering, how small can I get with the font? And, how useful is the "etching" function? Can one do loco doors with louvers and hinges for example?
Okay, that was two questions, sorry
Help much appreciated!
Otto

[Mark W]

Cutting resolution is limited by the blade, which itself is limited by the very concept of print-cutting.  The tip of the blade rotates freely around the point of index.  This is the only way to feasibly cut in any direction, essentially dragging the blade behind the index path.  Letter masking for N scale is probably out of the question except for big billboard/advertising letters.




Etching/Stippling is one of the features the Cameo 1 doesn't officially support so I've never tried it, though I wouldn't have very high hopes for louvers.  Hinges; possibly. 

[chessie system fan]

I've got a model that's several years old now.  What I do is draw what I want in corel draw, export it as a dfx file, and then size the drawing in the Silhouette software.  I've done passenger car sides easily.  I've created my own freight car kits.  One limitation is that it only cuts straight lines, so curves are made from lots of small straight lines. And the lighter the scribing the better the accuracy.  Bearing down makes the knife wiggle a little.  I suspect that's why Mark's letters and numbers below seem a little off.   

It's definitely a good investment though.

[Cajonpassfan]

Mark and Aaron, thank you very much, that's very helpful. I think I'll wait until I can see one of these working first hand. Maybe one of my friends will get one
Otto K.

[peteski]

I have a Graphtec CraftROBO plotter/cutter and IIRC its specs show the X/Y resolution as 300 steps per inch.

[Mark W]

Bearing down makes the knife wiggle a little.  I suspect that's why Mark's letters and numbers below seem a little off.   

You may need to replace your blade.  Depth of cut has no effect on the precision of cuts on my unit.   Those letters are 0.25 mm thick, so the wonkeyness (technical term) is due to the 'drag orientation' of the rotating blade.  For building walls windows and details larger than 1mm, the drag orientation is too minuscule to notice.

You also might want to check your file resolution settings.  "Only cuts straight lines" is not exactly accurate.  The circles above of 3, 2, and 1mm diameter show no segmentation at all.