Cutting foam with a hot wire
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URL: https://forum.bhpc.org.uk/forum_posts.asp?TID=5136
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Topic: Cutting foam with a hot wire
Posted By: Karl
Subject: Cutting foam with a hot wire
Date Posted: 06 May 2015 at 3:05pm
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Just as it says in the title... Has anyone got experience of cutting foam with a hot wire, I know you can get the genuine article or even kits but they all seem a bit to expensive or too small for the thickness of foam I have in mind. Your thoughts gentlemen/ladies. Yes, yes before you start gossiping its for a potential race faring plug... just gathering together my thoughts and materials... I'm going to blame Geoff for putting silly ideas in my head :-) Regards Karl Windcheetah 124
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Replies:
Posted By: GeoffBird
Date Posted: 06 May 2015 at 8:20pm
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Nah, I keep all the silly ideas for myself. ------------- Right Time - Right Place - Wrong Speed |
Posted By: Yanto
Date Posted: 06 May 2015 at 9:07pm
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Never tried it Karl, what about a using a bread knife - not joking, honest. There might be something in this lot though http://www.recumbents.com/wisil/whatsup.htm#Fairing%20Building%20Projects" rel="nofollow - http://www.recumbents.com/wisil/whatsup.htm#Fairing Building Projects
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Posted By: GeoffBird
Date Posted: 06 May 2015 at 10:24pm
Careful - I once made a 25 mm deep stab wound in my arm while carving Styrofoam with a kitchen knife  ------------- Right Time - Right Place - Wrong Speed |
Posted By: BarneyH
Date Posted: 07 May 2015 at 8:16am
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Karl I made a hot wire cutter, still got it in the garage, from instructions on the internet and used a cheap machine mart soldering iron as a donor for parts and earth wire for element - it worked / works and you're welcome to borrow it however I tend to agree with the the bread knife technique followed by glass paper and then superlight filler as the best technique for large pieces. Barney
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Posted By: jim
Date Posted: 25 May 2015 at 11:34am
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I used 2 home made foam cutters for my project . One was a vertical wire in a frame (an old jug element for the wire ) dimmer switch and Florescent tube ballast (off you tube. )useful for shaping before stacking 2nd was a piece of u shaped fairly heavy nichrome wire with a handle and a big old battery charger used for carving I found the more I could do with the hotwire the less dust and mess That foam gets everywhere! i used scrap packing foam laminated together with PVA and pinned with long pieces of stiff wire. Final shaping was with sanding belts cut and opened to full length fixed to a straight board. |