Video links below. I've noticed that professional craftsfolks who work with foam for creating theatre and movie sets, and those that manufacture cement-stucco covered foam forms for creating building facia for homebuidling and commercial building construction, use a "hot knife" sort of tool that quickly, cleanly melts/slices right through... And allows graceful and intricate shaping.
It basically is an electrically charged wire attached to arms that can be set to various angles and positions on a large, long table with guides. The foam board -- 4x8 or smaller pieces -- are lined up with the guides. The angle of the cut is dialed in. The electricity is turned on which heats up the cutting wire. Then the foam board is pushed through the cutting wire. No moop. No rough edges. Perfectly clean, quick cuts. Undoubtedly is some cyanide gas in the bit of vapor or smoke that rises from the cut. So be aware of that. Has anyone experimented with using a simpler version of this for cutting hexayurt boards. If so, what did you come up with? Is there some inexpensive device or utensil that has an electrically heated "blade" or wire that we could adapt to carefully free-hand cut in this manner? (Am thinking soldering iron. Am going to You Tube search that in a moment and see if anyone is doing that.) Here's a video of how one young guy made his own small-scale hot-wire foam cutter with a guitar string, rheostat (dimmer switch), small transformer, a couple alligator clips and couple blocks of wood: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckxnNRSM3YE&feature=fvsr Here's a larger, homemade unit that probably would work well for free-hand cutting hexayurt boards. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9IMIoJw61M Yep. Here's someone using a soldering gun to cut foam: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEKcLhr-gU4&feature=related Video demos of a commercial hand-held hot knife -- at 1:58 - 2:04 you will see pro cutting tables with guides: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2-R2HcRT70&feature=related Am wondering if I can weld or bolt a thrift-shop-purchased butcher knife blade onto a simple $6 stick soldering iron and get a workable hot knife? Will probably experiment with that next week, assuming my foam order has arrived. -- ken winston caine P.S. You Tube has a ton of make-your-own foam-cutting tool vids. I've only looked at a few so far. And am hoping others, besides me, will experiment with these and come up with a simple one for cutting hexayurt panels. Would really be cool if we could devise very simple guides for the angled cuts and the long cuts -- so we don't have to free-hand them. Yet don't have to build a full-scale pro-type hot-wire tablesaw setup. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "hexayurt" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/hexayurt?hl=en.
