In response to Bealman's request for pics, a "how I do it" set

For scratch buildings, or "clones" of kits I import a silhouette image file  into the Plotter cutter software

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I have previously printed the required brick, or stone to A4 label stock which I stick to card about 0.4/0.5mm thick,this card I feed into the plotter cutter and send the file from the software to the machine

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which cuts the outlines from the card to give me this lot

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also in this pic are the etched window and door frets from Peedie models, as you see there are quite a few bits of cut card, grey stone and 3 brick colours, the main walls come in two versions of door and window positions also various "add ons" like porches and rear extensions, not shown in the pic are cast bay windows and dormers  from Scalelink.

On the left are the walls of the next project with the lintels - strips of self adhesive label, these are white but could just as easily be cut from coloured label,   cills can be label or plastic strip which will project more than paper. The dark card on the rear wall is where the reae extension will fit, gives an edge to glue to. Bottom right is an ofcut of foam board in which I stick cast chimneys, gate posts etc (Scalelink) for painting.

A hack of the Metycalfe corner shop & pub the pub "converted" from a corner building to straight, which involved making and extra piece of wall for the back and a longer roof, part of the bit that would have gone round the corner became a house on the end, Back yard detailed with a shed, dustbins and some greenery, front has a window box over the pub frontage

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I already posted a recent 4 house terrace see
http://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?topic=17654.msg176160#msg176160

The Semi George was asking after, work in progress, needs a few details attending too that the camera has shown up

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A brick terrace in progress, note rear extension is shorter than that shown in the shot of tyhe bits laid out

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Finally - where it all happens - the cardbuilding bench, there another across the room for rolling stock and loco work!

Any questions please ask; and yes I know there's the odd slanting chimney and lintel, I took them to the group meeting and they got a bit knocked about in the bag. The lintels are more to do with an unsteasdy hand and eye though.

A very impressive "how to" Mike, you could set up a cottage industry (excuse the pun) and make a few bob on the side 

cheers John.

Thanks, Mike! Most informative. As you said earlier, those toilet pipes were very common and something that a lot of modellers forget to include.

Cheers!

George

Hi Mike what thickness card are you using with the silhouette, my wife has one for her crafting, and do you use your own templates if so how easy are they to design?

Hi Geoff, Card between 0.4mm and 0.55mm (Metcalfe is about 0.5 but quite stiff) I do use some heavier (0.7mm) for floors and as roof supports on longer buildings like terraces. My cutter is a KNK Zing, it's a bit bigger than the Silhouette and may well be able to cut thicker card, check the spec of the Silhouette, it should say what it is capable of,  you can find conversion tables on line ofr converting gsm to thickness in metric, imperial or microns and American equivalents (the Zing is from USA so doesn't work in metric, - yet!

I have 2 methods of generating the silhouette, the software ("Make the cut)" that comes with the Zing cutter has a set of just about any basic shape you can think of, squares, rectangles, triangles, diamonds, circles, ovals, stars etc etc. These you can manipulate, stretch, resize and also  join any number together, so for a wall pick a rectangle  and stretch it to the size you need, if you want a gable end, then pick a triangle and set it on top of the rectangle and tweak the size and shape to suit, join it to the rectangle, (you can flatten the triangle or stretch it up, even skew it - but not for the gable!) say the gable is an end wall, now take a second rectangle for the front or back wall size it, join it to the gable end, duplicate it and you have 2 ends a front and back, now add  small rectangles for windows and doors positioned where you want them within the walls. You can also add tabs to aid assembly. I try and use similar assembly methods to  Metcalfe kits, they seem to work, the only major difference  is using etched window frames, I still sometimes use printed doors,I have an A4 sheet of 'em, when I finish a sheet I print off another on thin card, my printer won't take anything over 208gsm, (0.5mm is 380gsm)

The other method involves scanning or copying parts of an existing free download kit into a drawing or photo application, converting it to a mono/greyscale image go over a magnified image and check for any parts that are not sharp. If the original is not N gauge resize it. You can alter things like the position and size of windows and doors, adjust  the dimensions to fit the spot on the layout you intend it to go.

I tend not to make an exact copy of kits, just use the scan or copy for general dimensions, so I have something that matches the kit but is not identical, as I generally use etched window frames and doors, the least I need to do is adjust the size of window and door openings. I'm not too sure on the copyright aspects, but I look on it as being the same as or similar to kit bashing.

I'm trying to figure out how to make something based on a photo (try entering Terraced house or Semi detached house images into Google)

If you have a plain brick, stone or rendered building then using printed card or thin plastic (Slaters for example) then cutting is quite straight forward, fo something a bit more "decorative" half rendered, timbered it is possible to print the detail and cut it, but that can be a PITA as you have to get the regisdtration spot on else you find what gets cut is not always identical to what has been printed, If I want a half rendered house then I print a label sheet of pebble dash, or plain colour rendering  and stick that where required. Timbering, lintels,cills etc I also stick on after the cutting is done, you will  see in one of the photos some walls with lintels and cills stuck on before assembly.

Stop it.  I'm getting very interested in a machine I can't really afford!

Quote from: Dorsetmike on November 30, 2013, 12:58:39 AM
Hi Geoff, Card between 0.4mm and 0.55mm (Metcalfe is about 0.5 but quite stiff) I do use some heavier (0.7mm) for floors and as roof supports on longer buildings like terraces. My cutter is a KNK Zing, it's a bit bigger than the Silhouette and may well be able to cut thicker card, check the spec of the Silhouette, it should say what it is capable of,  you can find conversion tables on line ofr converting gsm to thickness in metric, imperial or microns and American equivalents (the Zing is from USA so doesn't work in metric, - yet!

I have 2 methods of generating the silhouette, the software ("Make the cut)" that comes with the Zing cutter has a set of just about any basic shape you can think of, squares, rectangles, triangles, diamonds, circles, ovals, stars etc etc. These you can manipulate, stretch, resize and also  join any number together, so for a wall pick a rectangle  and stretch it to the size you need, if you want a gable end, then pick a triangle and set it on top of the rectangle and tweak the size and shape to suit, join it to the rectangle, (you can flatten the triangle or stretch it up, even skew it - but not for the gable!) say the gable is an end wall, now take a second rectangle for the front or back wall size it, join it to the gable end, duplicate it and you have 2 ends a front and back, now add  small rectangles for windows and doors positioned where you want them within the walls. You can also add tabs to aid assembly. I try and use similar assembly methods to  Metcalfe kits, they seem to work, the only major difference  is using etched window frames, I still sometimes use printed doors,I have an A4 sheet of 'em, when I finish a sheet I print off another on thin card, my printer won't take anything over 208gsm, (0.5mm is 380gsm)

The other method involves scanning or copying parts of an existing free download kit into a drawing or photo application, converting it to a mono/greyscale image go over a magnified image and check for any parts that are not sharp. If the original is not N gauge resize it. You can alter things like the position and size of windows and doors, adjust  the dimensions to fit the spot on the layout you intend it to go.

I tend not to make an exact copy of kits, just use the scan or copy for general dimensions, so I have something that matches the kit but is not identical, as I generally use etched window frames and doors, the least I need to do is adjust the size of window and door openings. I'm not too sure on the copyright aspects, but I look on it as being the same as or similar to kit bashing.

I'm trying to figure out how to make something based on a photo (try entering Terraced house or Semi detached house images into Google)

If you have a plain brick, stone or rendered building then using printed card or thin plastic (Slaters for example) then cutting is quite straight forward, fo something a bit more "decorative" half rendered, timbered it is possible to print the detail and cut it, but that can be a PITA as you have to get the regisdtration spot on else you find what gets cut is not always identical to what has been printed, If I want a half rendered house then I print a label sheet of pebble dash, or plain colour rendering  and stick that where required. Timbering, lintels,cills etc I also stick on after the cutting is done, you will  see in one of the photos some walls with lintels and cills stuck on before assembly.

Thanks for the info Mike, I will start off with something simple first then weigh in, If the Silhouette cannot handle the thicker card I will use the thinner card I have lots of backing card so will be able to strengthen that way, your thread has inspired me to try it out and hopefully be successful at it like you certainly seem to be, I have just put the wife's software on my  laptop and I have a copy of Serif Draw that will convert the files into correct ones for the Silhouette Software I find Serif Draw very easy to use and manipulate.

tutenkhamunsleeping the silhouette's are not cheap I think they start at about £180 but the detail you can get from them is fantastic, you should see the wifes card making she gets lots of fun out of making them, and the blades are about £15 a time.

'scuse my hignorance,  but do these machines work well with Plastikard instead of cardboard?

The thinner plasticards yes like the Slaters and Evergreen up to about 1mm thick, the smaller sheets of Ratio Builder packs probably not, anyway the Ratio sheets are too small for most projects you'dneed 2 or 3 just for the walls of a decent sized semi.
I have cut some heavy mounting board a thicker card and very dense and stiff, you need to set the machine to make 3 or 4 passes. There are alternative blades for cutting heavier materials and fabric,also an engraving tool. As a learning aid you can replace the blade with a pen and do some practice runs on plain paper.

I originally bought mine to make my own coach side vinyl overlays but so far have been sidetracked into buildings, however climbing the leaerning curve is easier on buildings, setting the registration to cut 12 or so fully printed coach sides (including running numbers and other lettering and lining) takes a bit of parctice.

The Zimg will also cope with balsa although balsa does sometimes want to split where it wants not where you want! Since I bought mine in March there has been a bit of an upgrade and a £20 price rise.

Thanks for that, I must seriously consider this route for structures.

Wow!

Great potential there - it's almost like having your own 3-D printer but much, much cheaper!

Thanks for the tutorial, this is something to investigate further.

There are things you can do with a 3D printer that can't be done with a plotter cutter and vice versa, but I think both would struggle with somwething like this



The detail and shape of the widow and door surrounds as in these shots

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alwyn_ladell/sets/72157629752332894/detail/

There are a hundred or so of these "cottages" dotted around this area, I keep meaning to have a go at one but the detail is quite intricate, I think window surrounds (click on right hand pic of second row) would need to be layered but even that would not do all of it justice although some of the finer bits are unlikely to be possible in N, things like those cast house numbers would probably have to be just printed and stuck on. I think even a 2 or 3 layer etch might be needed to do the window surrounds. Perhaps Alan (EP) could say if it is possible to etch the 45º angle of some of the brickwork. (I'm not contemplating a commission, can't afford another mortgage!)

Any (practical) suggestions welcomed!