I've created about 6 different hot wire foam cutters over the years. My first one was a simple V and then I got progressively more versatile from there. This past month I took on the project of putting blue-board up in my basement for insulation on the walls. It's an interesting project that required me to make a much better and more precise hot wire foam cutter. I started with a simple H foam cutter that I saw here on youtube. Once I find the link for it I will give that guy a link here in the description.
I then progressed to a longer length cutter that could use a rail for very precise long straight cuts. But that one was limited to only doing pieces 2' wide and I had to move the wire every time I needed to change more than a few inches because the whole frame was only 28 or 30 inches wide. meaning if I wanted to cut say a 4" piece off then next a 12" piece... there was no way to do it without moving the wire itself. Super pain in the butt!
So I finally ended on a design that I was trying to build in the first place, I just didn't think on the task enough until I was frustrated by the short-comings of the other 2 ideas. I wanted something simple that could use my workbench as a tool. I didn't want to hold my workbench prisoner to this project. That was key to me. Keep it super simple, keep it easy to setup, make it highly accurate.
Well this design that I'm dubbing the "Ultimate Hot Wire Foam Cutter" is all of those things. You can set it up in minutes. Seconds really if you already have your Nichrome wire to length. You can cut ANY size foam from huge 8' pieces, any width ...to tiny little ones. The fence can even be put at an angle to accommodate long pieces that would otherwise hit something in your shop. This setup also allows the user to go as high as they want because they just need more voltage and they can have a hot wire that exceeds a foot in length if desired. I am fine with about 6" of hot wire. I have no need (right now) for more than that.
Finally, the throat on this cutter. Well quite frankly it's the size of your shop. Because you're only limited by the distance from your wall to your wire. In my case that gives me slightly more than an 8' throat. So I could cut perfect 8' x 8' squares if I really wanted to. That would be crazy big!
Using the ceiling as the top anchor worked so much better than I thought it would because the rubber band gives the perfect bit of tension on the wire that I need.
Questions, let me know! I'll be curious to see what you guys think!
Sorry for the blurry shots!
