How to make a hot wire foam cutter thanks to www.terragenesis.co.uk/

[frankthedm]

What is a hot wire cutter?
A hot wire cutter is a tool for cutting cleanly through expanded polystyrene, also called styrofoam. Basically it consists of a piece of wire and a power supply that will heat it to a high enough temperature to cut the foam, but not so hot that the wire will melt. The construction of a cutter is straight forward...the difficult part is finding the correct combination of wire and power supply. This projects describes the power supply and wire used in my own cutter. It works well, and provided you use exactly the same combination I see no reason why yours shouldn't work too.

Before starting the project please read a few comments about safety:

Do not attempt any project involving electricity unless you are competent and confident to do so. Get some help if necessary. I made my cutter using exactly the materials and components listed here, and it works well. However I take no responsibility whatsoever for the outcome of your own project.
NEVER use unmodified mains electricity. It sounds stupid but I have seen hot wire cutter projects on the Web that do just that.
Only use a hot wire cutter in a well ventilated area. Read my safety tips for the use of hot wire cutters.......

http://www.terragenesis.co.uk/reference/makeahwc.html

Yay! Now i won't need the battery draining wonder cutter!


edit: as far as placing this in general D, the thread isn't about painting minis. But if the mods think it still belongs in the Art Gallery, Cartography & Miniatures Painting section, they can shunt it there.

 

[Henry]

Moved to Off-topic, and bumped because it's cool.

As long as someone's reasonably good at working with electricity, and not stupid enough to touch bare wires with Current running through them, sounds like a neat money-saver, and you get the size of cutter you want.

 

[Angcuru]

*cough* garrote *cough*