A number of these posts have been written already but need photos and diagrams adding, so I’ll be posting them up over the next couple of weeks. Silhouette Curio 2 is a reworking and relaunch of the Curio brand that was one of the first digital craft cutters, releasing on 2015. What makes the Curio 2 different is its flatbed design, this offers a large and stable cutting area that ensures greater precision. Silhouette has also recently released software for mobiles with Silhouette Go and Silhouette Mint is the bespoke app for the stamp machine. Silhouette Connect is a new plug-in that enables connectivity to CorelDraw and Adobe Illustrator, and its free. Which is easier to use Silhouette or Cricut? It’s great for crafters working on large designs and, considering its quality, is sold at a very reasonable price. It's not just the well known Silhouette and Cricut machines that can do masks, virtually any cutter with a very fine and sharp blade can do these. I own a Silver Bullet cutter and have used it for such work.

Tool Holder 1 (210gf): For Speed & Accuracy (Autoblade | All Ratchet Blades | Deep-Cut Blade | Sketch Pen & Pen Holder | 3rd Party Tools) If you’re new to Silhouette and need help with installing the design software, this is the post for you! It’s important to install Silhouette Studio® or Mint Studio™ on your computer before you connect your Silhouette, as it makes the setup process easier. What Is Silhouette Studio® And Mint Studio™? On the other hand, Silhouette Studio is more complex and even enables free-hand drawing and a neat vector tool. If you want to do more, CorelDRAW compatibility helps. This software is more than a design tool and enables you to fiddle with all manner of settings on the hardware itself. Cricut's approach is more hands-off, its system does the legwork. You'll be able to create designs for a huge range of projects – create custom apparel, personalised party pieces, unique home decor, 3D papercraft projects, decorative decals and more! Depending on what function you are trying to achieve, only the relevant buttons will illuminate making navigation intuitive and easy!My initial tutorials (from a list by MikeOxon later in this thread). Note that some of this information will have been updated later in the thread or in other tutorial threads. The Cricut Explore 3 is the manufacturers entry-level digital craft cutter, which means it's slightly smaller in width, is a little less powerful and supports fewer blade accessories than the leading Cricut Maker 3. But it's no slouch, either. A few people have been asking about the capabilities of the Silhouette Cameo that I have been using on my Wainfleet thread to help my scratchbuilding efforts and whether it would be right for them or for a club to buy. I can’t answer that, but I thought that this thread would help people decide if its right for them (and worth the outlay) while helping to provide information specifically for modellers. Designs are created in Silhouette Studio, which is an in-depth desktop design software that beginners may find overwhelming, which is why Silhouette has the Silhouette Go app for mobiles. We really love the connectivity to PixScan, an app that enables you to create designs from pictures and photos. The Cameo 4 provides the user with more cutting functions than ever before with inclusion of 3 brand new blade types:

On the rear of the machine there is an in-built cross cutter with media clamp which will give you a clean straight cut every time. Although Cricut Design Space is arguably much easier to get to grips with for beginners than Studio, it doesn’t offer a huge amount of potential from there. It’s arguably a bit of alet down.Cricut uses a rotary blade, a scoring wheel, a knife blade, a basic perforation blade, a wavy blade, a fine debossing tip, and an engraving tip. However, Silhouette is quite compact. It uses a rotary blade, a punch blade, a deep cut blade, and a knife blade. This can come down to preferences, budget and how you're using your cutting machine. The Silhouette Cameo 4 has a greater cutting power than the Cricut Maker 3, for example, but the Cricut Maker overcomes this with faster cutting and can offer a cleaner edge. The Silhouette Cameo 4 is better for fabric cutters, as its larger size is useful. I like to try to be organised (though I don’t always manage it). To help me with this, I have a template that I use when I’m drawing up my plans in Silhouette Studio. The table includes a data panel and a 4mm scale ruler. I find that things can get confusing further down the line if I don't have a panel that tells me the scale and purpose of the file. Most of the information I type in there should be fairly obvious, but just to make it clear, on the action line I tend to write cut, score, draw if you have a pen or engrave if you buy their engraving kit.

One element that gets virtually no mention with cutting machines is stencils. Whereas a mask is intended to cover the area to be protected, such as glazings etc., i.e. to paint or spray around the mask, a stencil is designed to paint or spray inside the area being covered. I have used the cutter for making stencils which provide perfect circles, such has helo spots and numbers on ship models plus white line demarcations and so forth. Silhouette Portrait 3— A ‘portable’ craft cutter with a smaller cutting area, ideal for smaller projects and lighter materials. Which you choose in the Maker 3 vs Cameo 4 debate will come down to your skill level and projects. Cameo 4 is a powerful machine with a feature-rich but complex software, and its limited range of accessories could leave you wanting more. When it comes to cutting speed, the Cameo 4 is faster than the Explore Air 2. Cameo 4 can cut straight lines and also has a higher acceleration speed. 5. Blades The machine's cutting pressure ensures it can slice through most materials from paper to wood and even leather. Engraving and embossing can be achieved, and it can perform delicate pen work. In our Cricut Maker 3 review we found this to be one of the best cutting machines we've used to date, and easily a step up from past Cricuts.I think you might have noticed that I'm passing between metric and imperial measurements all of the time. I'm afraid it's a product of my upbringing as well as the fact that I'm in Canada, like the UK it's nominally decimalised, but there are gaps and influences. A lot of my stuff, and a lot of the documentation on the internet is from the States for example Silhouette Alta 3D— Silhouette’s 3D printer, which can be used to build simple models and custom designs out of PLA filament. Before the launch of the Cricut Maker 3, the Silhouette Cameo 4 had more of an edge in the Cricut vs Silhouette battle. It still has the edge on cutting strength, and while it's the more powerful machine, it's also cheaper. But there's questions over whether raw power is needed in craft cutting. No matter which you choose, they all have more power than the previous Cameo machines (and more than Cricut Maker). The extra power means these cutting machines are more efficient and deliver clean cuts on a range of materials, from the classic vinyl and fabrics, to metals and leather. We find this is a cutting machine that can be use for almost any craft project. This desktop cutter uses a simplified touch panel to load materials, move the cutting mat, connect to Bluetooth, and position the tools. 2. Storage Compartment

The best thing about the Curio is undoubtedly the number of new features it has that no other Silhouette die cutter can do. I use and would recommend Inkscape for drawing up masks and stencils. The software is free and fairly easy to learn and use. One area where the Silhouette Cameo 4 wins out is cutting pressure. With 5000gf (gram force) / 5kg, it has an extra 25% on Cricut Maker 3's 4000gf / 4kg. It also has a higher cutting clearance of 3mm to Cricut's 2.4mm. When the machine is not being used there is a slide out lid to keep the internals clean and protected. I probably won't be on tomorrow, but feel free to post any questions you have and I'll answer them (or someone else can) as soon as I can.

Games

Cricut is older than Silhouette. It currently has five different types of Cricut machines: the Cricut Explore Air 2, Cricut Explore 3, the Cricut Maker, the Cricut Maker 3, and the Cricut Joy. However, Silhouette was launched a decade after Cricut was founded. Inkscape is a fully featured and free application that will allow you to create drawing files to be cut on the Silhouette cutter either by saving your file in the DXF file format or directly using the commercial Cut Wizard utility. It is similar to the commercial Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw. I’ve used Inkscape on and off for a few years and found it fairly buggy in the past; it used to close down on the simplest of things – opening files for example. The latest version seems to be very stable and it hasn’t closed down once on me while working on this tutorial. On the drawing side, Inkscape can do everything that Silhouette Studio can do and then some. It has a steeper learning curve than Silhouette Studio because it isn’t specifically engineered to work with it. That said, if you get to the point where Studio isn’t good enough, and you don’t want to fork out a lot of money, then this is the way to go. The Cameo 4 has had a complete make over, new aesthetic, sliding lid and a compact design make it the prefect desktop cutting system for home or small business.