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Why the back of the blade?


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Hi,

This is my first post here, though I've been lurking for a while, so it might as well be a question. I'm back in the modeling game after close to 15 years away and want to up the detail level of my builds. I've seen many articles on opening doors here, but wondered why you use the back of the blade to cut the door open? It seems that the sharp side would be more effective and take less time. Is it a control thing?

Thanks.

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Basically yes. If you go sharp-end first it tends to dig in, and you risk it skittering out of the panel line and making a mess. It cuts TOO well, and will not move smoothly. Using the back it peels off a consistent amount of plastic with each pass, and doesn't get stuck and shoot off course over and over.

Or to put it another way: If you use the "blade" side, you're actually cutting, but not removing, the plastic. If you use the back side, the squared-off shape of the blade actually acts like a tiny gouge or plane, and removes plastic, creating a groove that's the width of the blade's thickness. Doing it this way serves two purposes: One, you remove the plastic that's in the body's molded-in panel lines, giving you an accurately-scaled opening between the body and the panel you're removing (door, trunk, etc.), and two, you actually have more control using the back side of the blade... it won't tend to "jump the groove" as readily as if you were using the sharp side and cutting the plastic.

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