It seems most of the hot wire cutters on here are deleted videos or missing pictures, so I thought I'd post what I made. I had a piece of Formica clad board left over from my new shop sink so I used part of it, some bed rail angle, a couple of scraps of oak and a spring I found. It's a little too stiff, but i have about a half inch of travel for wire expansion. I cross drilled the bolt head for the wire but if make another one I'll just use a wooden spring, a thin piece of wood laid flat. Using my battery charger on 6v right now and it works but may be a little cool. Maybe it's OK, if I stop it makes a bigger hole. Was able to cut a thin sliver off the cylinder and the I-beams came out OK. Time to make more patterns...
I run mine on a 12 volt car charger and a motor speed controller to control temperature. I built this some years ago. As you can see it is a hand held. The wire length can range from an inch to 2 foot so the wire voltage adjustment is a must. A desk top with a fixed wire length and resistance would not be as critical although it would be a benefit. Joe
They're certainly useful. I mostly use mine for resizing stock and cutting machining blanks. They can be pretty useful for cutting profiles with a pattern too. Takes a little practice. Like most machining it's feed and speed but for the hot wire, cutting speed = wire heat. If you dwell, you burn the foam. Low heat and speed for precision work. If you start cutting thicker stock or resizing planks into thinner sheets, you may find an adjustable support for the wire to be helpful as wire deflection becomes a bigger issue as depth of cut increases....more heat can help too. Best, Kelly
Mine is broken but if I ever decide to fix it, I'll probably switch it to make the wire run horizontal instead of vertical and use it to cut wide slabs of blue or pink foam to desired thickness; my little benchtop bandsaw is a bit of a struggle to use for anything else but it works well for making the vertical cuts in Styrofoam that I used to use the hot wire for. Jeff
That looks good. My next step is a cylinder and cone cutter for my lathe, but if I'm going to cast right off the hot cut I've figured out I need a template or guide of some sort. For thin stuff like I'm cutting it's pretty easy to cut at the melt speed and not force the wire. I'm just starting out. I made another pattern for my furnace preheat tray. It is just too easy. I did add a dimmer switch to my battery charger. Went to the hardware store today to buy a transformer. They said they hadn't carried them for years. I just couldn't get the finish I wanted with my bandsaw. Maybe a finer blade would help.
