Using Inkscape to create svg files and a Cricut Maker to cut balsa model plane parts. Pt. 1 

That's a more than perfect perfect perfect application for the xtool laser engraver/cutter ! I think GOD inspired the creation of these laser cutters for all of us MODEL AIRPLANE BUILDERS!

Different versions of Reader are a little different in how to do the copy. To copy a section for importing somewhere else, try selecting the "Edit" tab, then on the drop down, select "More". You should see the "Take a Snapshot" selection. Click on that, and then draw a box around what you want to copy.

My MSI gaming laptop seems to have challenges with Inkscape and Acrobat Reader DC though it does fine with other graphics and video editing software. Trying to open a JPG in Inkscape just shows a red X. Colors for fill, text and stroke do not display for objects in Inkscape. Opening a file I created in Inkscape in Edge show the selected colors and opening in Notepad shows the values of the colors. Opening free downloaded colored SVG files in Inkscape displays the same results: black text and outlines and no colored fill. I want to enlarge the Hellcat pdf files provided by truckerboy on RCGroups from a span of 16 to 20 inches and convert Metric to Imperial wood sizes which would change the stringer, spar, leading edge, trailing edge, horizontal stabilizer etc cutouts. The pdfs open directly in inkscape and I can delete the text part piece identifiers. Looking at the pdf object tree, every path is nested on a duplicate guide and all paths are duplicated twice. I deleted a set of duplicate paths and moved all paths to a single guide deleting the empty ones. I merged the parts of each layer of the laminated cowl parts so they are a single part and, perhaps unnecessarily, separated parts that had a shared cut line. More cuts but maybe more accurate. The vertical stab/rudder separation was removed. Examining the node coordinates for being centered, I fine tuned a few. I'll draw a few plans by pen in the Cricut to ensure scaling is correct. I plan to make stringer cutout squares, duplicate and place them tangentially around former curves, perform a boolean Venn cut with the squares and run balsa trial cuts to see how the square size works at various angles to the grain.

Close. Born in California. Raised in Alabama. 10 years in the Navy all across the nation (but not PA). Five more in South Carolina. And 26 in Oregon at the time of this video. But, sooooo close.

Wow! I was close by a long shot, ha! For some reason you just sounded like a PA native. I'm from there but now 30 yrs in AZ. Mark, you got me going I've already graduated Pt. 1 and lookin' for Pt. 2. It's great to be able to make balsa models again but with the high tech tools. Thanks for your videos and for the reply!

You should be able to scale it down correctly, so long as you lock the X-Y axes before decreasing size.

The best way for me to describe it is to first trace each individual part that you need. Then, using the Document Properties selection in the File tab, set the units to "in". Then set the Width to 3 inches and the Height to 23 inches. This will give you a long rectangular box on the screen denoting the area of the balsa sheet. Move the individual parts to the box and arrange them to fit the box. You'll probably have to rotate or flip the parts to get the best fit on your balsa sheet. On the tutorial I used 12" Width and 3" Height, but after I got things arranged the way I wanted I rotated the whole thing so it was aligned vertically to work on the Maker machine.

It doesn't. If you see the roller bar that goes across the Cricut machine from one side to another, that is the limitation. A 3/32" sheet will fit under the roller bar, but a 1/8" sheet will not.

Hi sorry, I think I figured it out. I tried Adobe and it seems to work. Thanks

@@mtopxsecret6 The .pdf is just a file that I downloaded from the internet and pulled up in Inkscape. I also use .jpg files. Pretty much any file that Inkscape will pull up is good to go.

Hi again, one more question. When you have the pdf in Adobe, have you got the page size set to fit A4 size, or set to actual size, and then copying and pasting over to inkscape? Ive been thinking about this over the past week while im waiting for my cricute machine to arrive. Thanks

@@mtopxsecret6 I have never even thought about it. I just open the .pdf with Inkscape and then save it immediately as a .svg file. After that, I use Inkscape to size the drawing to whatever size I want it to be. If the drawing has a scale on it I use that. If not, I pick a feature, such as wingspan, and size the drawing to the wingspan that I want. I again save it to my hard drive. After is is sized the way I want, I start drawing out the parts.

To further clarify, when I open the .pdf file with Inkscape, I first ensure that the Height/Width scales are locked so that I do not distort the image. Then I grab a corner of the drawing and enlarge or reduce it to get the scale that I want.

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