Workshop Notes

Cutting on the middle of the line is, strictly, the most accurate. The drawing package I use (Adobe Illustrator) uses the centre point of the line for alignment. Model cut out like this are much more likely to fit together accurately.

Cutting to the inside of the line also has advantages. There is no black line on the model part which means that the finished model can have continuous areas of colour uninterrupted by black edges Compare the pictures below, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the inside-the-line model looks much neater that the ouside-the-line model. Rod Moore from the Cockermouth Toy Museum says that you can improve the look of the model even further by using water colour paint or felt pen to colour match the exposed edge.

Cutting the outside of the line gives a solid black edge. Sometimes this can be effective giving a graphic look to the model. The danger is that a pin line of white is left beyond the black line making the model look untidy.

So, which technique to use? I tend to use a mixture of all three. Mechanism parts such as cams and push rods I will cut out midline for maximum accuracy. Lines that will be in the middle of an area of colour I cut inside the line to give a clean tidy finish to the model and edges which won't be glued onto another part, such as the curved lower edge on the pig model above, I cut to the outside of the line giving a sharply defined edge.
So, before you start cutting out your model it is worth spending a little time working out where and how you are going to cut the lines. I hope that you have found this interesting and useful. If you have any comments about cutting technique I'd be interested to hear about them.