Hi - I'm thrilled to learn that the Brother Scan and Cut will cut through some styrene. I wonder whether it has the ability to scribe grooves or trenches in the plastic without cutting all the way through?
That might make it easier to create custom-sized arches or lintels over wall openings without having to search for separate detail material and hoping that that detail part has the right dimensions and appearance.
Thank you!
to the forum. Your initial posts are delayed while in moderation.
We have had a few threads over the years about these devices and I don't recall that mentioned as a feature.
Jack Burgess uses a Circut machine and he says the number of passes and the depth is adjustable, so may you can do what you suggest.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
Thanks! All of the machines are expensive and they all seem to have different abilities.
Several years ago Circut had a demo set up at a local Craft Store. I took a drawing and a sheet of 1/32” basswood down to the store and they let me use the demo machine. I wasn’t impressed enough to purchase one. I’m still without.Mel My Model Railroad http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/ Bakersfield, California I'm beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.
Looks like there will be an article about these things in the September MR.
It occurs to me that rather than tinker with carriage and head paths so the DeepCut blade always 'trails' correctly for scribing, the OP might actually want to try different actions and perhaps different substrates to get the effect i think he wants.
Various embossing tools on a substrate like thin metal or foil with an underlying glue or wax layer might give him remarkable 3D detail without tearing. There is a Chomas engraving point, kinda like a sharp ballpoint tip with a carbide insert, which should be capable of scribing multiple depths of groove detail on any of the usual thermoplastics; I haven't seen anyone arrange to heat such a tip selectively but it would be relatively trivial for many modelers here, and that would let you do fairly complex 3D in any direction without swiveling-knife and breakage/dulling problems.
Yes, you will want a higher-tack mat; probably you will wnt to research ways of better holding parts as you scribe or profile them if the mat is part of the machine's registration system.
I guess the question is will it take longer to develop a program and run it then cutting out individual pieces. Doing a one off I doubt it. Doing say 20 or more maybe.
If you are into CAD (AutoCAD or similar, I use DesignCAD 20) the machine will import DXF files so no learning curve needed. I used a DXF drawing on the demo machine and it worked. The drawing was the exterior walls of a HO scale house.The multi cut alignment was remarkable! It took four passes with the deep cut blade to cut the 1/32” basswood.If you are into a lot of scratch building the machines do work pretty good. I couldn’t see a big enough advantage over my #11 blade and ruler to justify a $300 investment.The CAD drawing isn’t an impact on me, I make full size drawings of every scratch built structure for making templates. Mel My Model Railroad http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/ Bakersfield, California I'm beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.