A few examples

Palm trees

I think Lance Mindheim uses these cutting machines to make the palm leaves for his outstanding palm trees.  I've seen none better anywhere!  You have some excellent stuff here from your Cricut.  My wife is a scrapbooker and card maker.  She has all of these machines!  I need to look into what she has a bit closer. 

Tom Johnson

Hi Tom

Yes,

 It takes some experimentation but the Cricut does pretty darn good palm trees. I sure wouldn't want to cut them by hand!

What materials did you use?

Rick,

what materials did you use for these cuts, and what thicknesses?  I was under the impression that styrene didn’t cut too well on these cutters?

materials

Almost exclusively styrene sheet. The one exception is when using the Print n Cut feature you are limited to whatever your printer uses like gloss photo paper. The ducts on the Golden Pacific building are photo paper wrapped around balsa wood sticks.

 Structural parts are all from styrene sheet. With a Deep Cut blade (assuming relatively new and sharp) I use a lot of .020. I have a standard Cricut Explore and use custom presets for pressure and number of passes over the cut lines.You don't have to use custom presets as you can cut once....don't unload the mat....hit cut again....repeat as many times as you want but setting up complex cuts on a preset allows you to hit cut one time and walk away while the Cricut goes through the number of passes you need. Often it is cleaner to use a slightly lower pressure combined with more passes than highest pressure and fewer cuts. I laminate pieces together to get the thickness needed for some structural elements. The "dual frames" on the loading dock are a good example of lamination. The same frames are also a good example of why I don't just cut do the cutting by hand. I wanted these elements to have a more modern look to them than the standard post and beam 90 degree type of structure that is easy to do by hand. These frames have a distinctive angle and taper that was easy to set up in the program I use and cut out many copies quickly that were precise and simple to laminate.

 The Cricut method really shines when circle/arcs are needed in exact multiples. So much quicker and infinitely more accurate than by hand (at least by MY hand!). The support system for the tubular gee-gaw in the top photo and the sign on the front of Golden Pacific are good examples.

The heaviest styrene I run through the Cricut is .040 which is strictly score and cut. Again, when it is an odd shape it beats the heck out of hand cutting. Below are the trusses for the GP roof. I wouldn't have attempted this by hand.

  Laminated .040 trusses.

Sniff, sniff.....

Smells like a great article with a little in action video...........

Steve

Billboard

How about cardstock lettering for a 1:24 scale roof-top billboard?

Cutters are useful!

Tremendous work Rick! Did you make those condenser grilles with the cutter??? I am curious on if i can manage to use the cutter for mechanical reefer grilles.

Here is my take on Palm trees using a cutter for the "leaves". I mostly used my cutter for structures though...

And this

And the cutter was used to make these...

Great applications

Well done Rick. I thank you for pointing to the parts created and showing the Design Space cut template. I really need to explore more of the Print and Cut features of the machine. Your ductwork looks amazing. I’d really like to see the steps you did to create that file and what paper you used. 
Thanks for sharing. 

Thanks guys

I'm heading to the airport to return back home. Will answer questions tomorrow.

Excellent work! Your results

Excellent work! Your results speak for themselves.

I'm only marginally familiar with these devices. Which model is yours? Is there any community support for these devices, particularly for those of us who would use them for cutting styrene sheet? 

cricut model

If I were going to buy mine over again I would definitely buy the Maker version.

Cutting Styrene is as easy as cutting paper. No grain to mess with and it cuts easily.

There is a facebook group called modeling with the cricut explore but they cover maker too.

Yannis, your palm fronds

Yannis

Nice work my friend!

To your question. No, I did not cut any grills with the Cricut. The one in the front is a photo and all others are wire screen. The Cricut is a fairly crude device and its resolution of 144 DPI along with the tendency to round off square corners really limit the items it is useful for. I would give a hunk of change for a Cricut that had a resolution of 300 DPI, no "wander" and the ability to cut .040 styrene easily. As far as I know that machine doesn't exist for modelers.

I have no interest in lasers so that's not an option. 3D printers tempt me but I don't know if I want to deal with the computer end of it. 

Rick Sutton's wants in a new machine...

Rick,

When it comes to rounding of corners, I know my Silhouette CAMEO and its software has an option to overcut and lift blades at (sharp) corners. This helps me cut corners that are a lot less rounded than without that option. I don't believe the Cricut software provides that option, so you'd have to use tricks like, using separate layers for the 2 lines that form a corner, to cut those corners more angular.

Thicker material cutting: Silhouette just came out with a 'CAMEO 4' machine with a dual carriage head for $299. The first head allows for the "standard" 210 grams of force, while the second head allows for a whopping 5,000 grams of force and cutting materials up to 3mm thick. Unfortunately as of writing, the blade cartridges for this second head are not yet available, but pricing shows them to be around 13 USD for a 2 pack.

I'm not sure what the resolution is of any of these machines. I've always been able to convert my measurements in my CAD application as is and my first generation Cameo simply cuts it out. Typically it's the medium I'm cutting that limits my "resolution", not the printer.

Links to 2 Silhouette CAMEO 4 information pages:

https://www.silhouette101.com/archives/introduction-to-silhouette-cameo-4
https://www.silhouetteamerica.com/shop/cameo

PS: I'm not affiliated with Silhouette, just using my wife's machine occasionally for cutting shapes in 0.01" sheet styrene.

Thanks Yaron

Appreciate the info and will look into it.

 The Cricut Maker also had a long delay in availability of their deep cut knife. Cutting deeper than the standard models seems to be the unicorn of the crafting cutters technology.

I haven't forgotten about replying to other questions

This space will shortly have some thoughts.....too many questions to go into deep detail but Ill address what I can.

Condenser and overhead door wrappers. Cricut Print Then Cut files for reference.

Paper for printing

The best I have found. Even better is that it is inexpensive.

Duct work

The ductwork was drawn, colored and sized in Affinity photo then sent to the Cricut. Here are the files used. These were taken from engineering drawings or photos (can't remember) so the sectional proportions are correct. Then rivets, rust and section lines drawn on to make them look the way I wanted.

Great Work Rick!

and thanks for the compliments Mark (Charles) and Rick. I do have a Cameo 3 by the way and the 4 version that Yaron mentioned sounds very interesting.

Rick, the only thing that is on the computer side of things with respect to a 3d printer is cad-skills (if you want to design). The rest are easy (depending on the machine...).

Well done Rick.

I really like Affinity Photo. How do you save your artwork to transfer into Design Space? 

Software?

Hi Rick,

Thanks for sharing the ideas.  Are you using "Make The Cut" software to drive your Cricut?

I've got a Zing cutter and have been using it for skyscrapers and arched concrete bridges.

a couple more notes

Thomas and Bruce. Thanks for the comments.

 Artwork files from Affinity. I've tried just about everything possible early on. PNG is the winner for me and what I have standardized on. 

All I use is Affinity Photo -PNG file-into Cricut design space.

NOTE!   to those that haven't used Cricut yet.      Cricut Design Space works at 144 DPI. I work at 300 DPI in Affinity. If you look closely at my Affinity files you'll see a horizontal red line at the top left. That is what I use to resize the file in Design space so the cut is correct. I use use a 3.00" line and just pull the corner of the file to size the line. If I have enough room I'll put a red line across the entire top, measure it in the transform area of Affinity and when in Design space input the dimension into the horizontal size box at the top. Quicker and more precise but the red line HAS to be the longest horizontal element on both sides of document. I never worry about removing the line (actually a very skinny rectangle) before cutting. Refer to photos below.

Note. Print then Cut is limited in size. IIRC it is 6.75" wide by 9.25" tall.  

Another note. Unless things have changed very recently....DON'T USE SAFARI TO ACCESS DESIGN SPACE.

Chrome works, others may also work but I have not tested them.

Yes

I have done somthing similar.