I just made a Hot Wire "Styro- Slicer" that traces out styrofoam shapes with an impressive amount
of precision and control. It’ll create 3D puzzles for entertainment and decoration,
or help you craft a custom styrofoam sword, for cosplay or metal casting. The wire blade
can be set to any angle you need, and perhaps the best part is, the whole thing compacts
together easily, for quick and clutter-free storage.
Styrofoam usually isn’t the nicest stuff to work with.
If you snap or break a piece in half, it’ll spew a mess of tiny, styrofoam balls that
stick to just about everything. And even if you try cutting it with scissors or a knife,
the pieces still come out jagged, and look terrible.
But not with the “Styro-Slicer”.
There’s a much easier way to form your foam, and all it takes is a simple hot wire foam
cutter, like this one I made out of low cost, and easily accessible materials.
The heart of the “Styro-Slicer” is a thin, stainless steel wire that uses electricity
to slice through any thickness of styrofoam you want.
As the wire gets hot, it melts through the foam pieces like a hot knife through butter, leaving
some of the cleanest and smoothest edges, imaginable.
The little spring at the top is there to help keep constant tension on the wire as it expands
and contracts with the heat, and looking at the side of this improvised “foam factory”
you’ll see a red switch, and an adjustable dial.
The dial is for fine-tuning the temperature of the wire so it’ll slice faster, or slower,
depending on your skill level and the kind of material you’re working with.
And the red switch boosts the system from normal power, to "overdrive". I’ll show you
what that does in just a minute.
Now watch what happens if you try gluing something like a custom paper template to the top of
the styrofoam, and setting it to about 30% power.
You can see the foam cutter still glides easily through the styrofoam, but notice how it doesn’t
actually go through the paper.
This means you now have the option, of using your own custom paper shapes as cutting guides,
to produce really clean and professional looking props.
I went ahead and made some custom 3D weapon art, like a styrofoam handgun, as well as
an arsenal of “Mini Master Swords”, which I’ll show you how to make yourself, in two other project videos.
The base of the Styro-Slicer is an 18” work surface that gives plenty of room for most of your hobby projects.
And if you attach a straight-edge to one of the sides you’ll be able to slice and dice
perfectly clean lines, like never before.
Now "normal" power is the mode you’ll typically use for cutting foam and tracing templates,
but if you need a little extra boost, simply flip the red switch to "overdrive".
This instantly gives you enough power to cut through balsa wood, and burn through paint
sticks, like the kind you get from the hardware store.
I’m not really sure why you’d need that much power, but the option is there, just in case you do.
And check this out. If you have to quickly step away from your project, just click the
button on the side to instantly kill the power and stop the cutting.
Withn 3-5 seconds, the wire’ll be cool enough that you can actually touch it by hand. And
when you’re ready to get going again, just press the button, to pickup exactly where you left off.
But that’s not all.
The "Styro-Slicer" is designed to shape foam blocks up to 8 inches tall, and the Slicer
arm can be adjusted to make beveled cuts as well. Up to 45º on the work surface, and
over 180º when used by itself.
What’s really cool is if you position the arms horizontally over the base, you can actually
cut styro-slices, as thin as you can imagine.
And if that’s not enough, simply unscrew the wing-nut at the back of the support, and
you’ll see the entire wire saw comes right off, giving you the option to cut larger styrofoam blocks free-handed.
But wait, there’s more.
If you ever lose power, or want to operate off the grid, simply unclip the backup battery
cable, and hook the clips, to the terminals of a 6v lantern battery, and you’re back in business.
These cheap and easy modifications make it so you can take your “foam factory” just about anywhere.
And if your lantern battery dies on you, rather than throwing it out, try hacking it open
so you can repurpose the carbon rods inside, to build a “Mini Arc Furnace”, like the
one I showed you in a previous project.
The Styro-Slicer is made completely out of low-cost and easily accessible materials,
and can take as little as 5 seconds to set up and start working.
It’s also designed to snap back together ergonomically, so it takes up as little space
as possible, when you’re finished, and ready to put it away.
Well now you know how to glide through styrofoam with ease, and create amazing styrofoam creations on a budget.
You’ll just need to build your own “Styro-Slicer” first, but I’ll show you how to do that,
in another project video.
Well that’s it for now. If you liked this project, perhaps you’ll like some of my others.
Check them out at www.thekingofrandom.com