Using a triangle to cut apart decals has an additional advan-
tage over a metal ruler. When using a metal ruler, you can’t
actually see how close you are to the adjacent lettering,
especially when the lines of lettering are close to each other.
Instead, a “see-through” drafting triangle will ensure that you
are halfway between two adjacent lines of lettering as well as
parallel to the line of lettering, as shown in Photo 3.
It might seem that using a drafting triangle as a cutting edge
instead of a metal ruler would easily result in cutting into
the triangle itself. But I haven’t had that problem. Holding
the hobby knife at about a 30
o
angle from the sheet being
cut and using a No. 11 blade results in the cutting edge of
the blade being at a very shallow angle, allowing it to easily
2: It is much easier to hold a triangle than a narrow scale ruler,
as shown here. This makes it easy to ensure that the straight-
edge doesn’t move as you are cutting a piece of material.
2
