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I am trying to locate a hot wire styrofoam cutter. If you know where I can purchase a hand held unit, please let me know.
Looks like the kit I want, sculpting tool & hot knife, is $75 from the Hotwire Foam Factory.The Hotwire system can be purchased either online or any conventions they attend.
I have a hot wire cutter from HL and I think its works fine....if its too hot it will make a bad cut.Most of the time I just use a box cutter to sculpt my styrofoam, but I've been trying to do some research on good styrofoam hot-wire cutters.
The two that I have currently are very cheap and not very reliable. One is a $5 cutter that requires two "D" batteries to heat the wire. It's not bad for short bursts through thin sheets, but it runs through batteries pretty quick. The other is a cheap Michaels find hot-wire "wand" cutter. It worked pretty good -- until it broke the same afternoon I bought it!
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I think the main problem with both of these cutters is they don't get hot enough.
I have found a cutter on eBay for $30 that claims to run at a cutting temperature of 428° F. I know this may be a stupid question, but is that a good temp for styrofoam cutting?
I know my wood burning iron runs at about 750° F and that's probably too hot for finer wire cutting.
My suggestion, for the best price and best results, would be to build the Garage-of-Evil styrofoam hot-wire table. Purchasing the parts isn't too expensive, but being able to push sheets of styrofoam across a flat table to be cut by a perfectly verticle wire is definitely going to help you with those straight cuts. I realize it's not the perfect tool for everything, but the concept of the wire heating element can be adapted to a handheld tool as well.I cut a lot of styrofoam, at different angles and using different sizes. I do want something that is going to last for some time. again I pretty hard on my equipment, I don't need one more thing I have to baby, because I have to hurry and get the job done.
Currently I am using a knife to cut through the styrofoam, and on my pink foam it is leaving very rough ends, which are not a straight cut. I am getting frustrated having to go back and repair the damaged areas.
Keep the ideas coming.