Foam Cutter Suggestions?

[snapshot_superhero]

Hey ladies and gents, I'm going to be venturing into making my own table soon, and I was looking for a decent set of foam cutters. I don't need anything too ellaborate as I dont think I will be doing this often, but I don't want a piece of junk either. I'm mainly looking to cut a few hills and maybe a few buildings.

Here is what I was looking at: http://www.thewarstore.com/product187.html

Is that fine to use with the pink foam? Any help you guys can offer would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

Ryan

[GypsyComet]

For pink or blue you definitely want something operating on AC.

The top of the line is Hotwire Foam Factory: http://hotwirefoamfactory.com/home.php

There are also the solid blade varieties: http://www.craftershotknife.com/

All useful for certain types of cutting.

[Thracy11]

I'm looking at picking up a hotwire cutter myself. Someone on youtube swears by this: http://woodlandscenics.woodlandscenics.com/show/Item/ST1435/page/1

And its not much more than the one you've found, and much cheaper than the other suggestion in this thread. Just for comparison shopping/price variety.

Cheers!

[Invid]

man dont get teh woodland scenics ones. I have had 3. only purchased 1. and 2 more from warranty shipments. All were terrible. Quit working almost immediately, didnt get hot- wow. Just terrible. terrible. terrible.

[Big Rich]

I have found that having access to a variety of hot wire cutters is helpful. However, if you can only get one ... I'd recommend the Woodland Scenics one since it is the one I have found to be the easiest to use for making hills and such. I've never run into the problem that Invid was talking about ... but the cool thing is that Woodland Scenics stands by their products. If you call them, they'll likely replace it if you send it out to them. Give them a call.

I do have the one from TheWarStore, and it does an excellent job, too. But it is more for detail work like cutting small designs into foam, etching out bricks, and creating holes in walls. If you follow my rambling post.

I also have a foam cutter that is designed with a razor blade (x-acto style) which heats up. This is great for cutting foamboard.

[Klingsor]

I have the Woodland Scenics model and it works well. I use it mostly for hills - shaping the slope on them and it works well. I have also placed it roughly in a clamp (a school science stand borrowed legitimately) to do the slope on the roof of Viking longhouses and it did that to.

I thought it would have eaten wire but I was wrong, it does not break that much at all.

Something fixed and vertical like a hot wire bandsaw would be nice as would a deeper throat but I suspect I could make these myself using the wire and transformer from Woodland Scenics. My own earlier attempts to make one were not successful in what were sometimes dangerously exciting ways largely due to a lack of resistance wire and an inability to recall any useful bits of O' Level Physics.

[devoncodain]

The building the band saw type hot wire cutter all you need is the wire. You can power it by an old cell phone charger if you have any laying around. I am building one now.