Yesterday was a fun day - not. It started with a root canal and finished with a major grocery shopping trip. Since it's about 25 miles to the store (and dentist, and ...) I decided to force it and help get the job done. Benefits include staying home all day today, and saving the gas.
I managed to work on a couple of projects. Since I like for my railroad modules to have something other than the "plywood plains" look, I use foam for terrain contours. In the move, I lost my three homemade hot wire foam cutters, named the "Foaminators" by another modeler. They were made from 1/2" PVC and brass bolts with nichrome wire. So, I needed a new set. One stick of pipe is enough for these three. The power leads are low voltage lighting cable.
I power a cutter with a variable dc power supply I have from my ham radio daze. I did make a second power supply from an old car battery charger. I have found about 2A current is plenty, and it only takes a few volts to do the job. I use 22ga. nichrome wire. Pictures later, I expect.
Two words of caution: First, always have a lot of ventilation. The fumes are toxic, toxic, toxic. I'll do my cutting in the garage with the doors open. We have a back door in there, so there's a good breeze when it's open. The second place is ni the barn, near the open overhead door. When in doubt, I also use a box fan (it was my grandmother's - nearly 50 years ago. Still runs good.)
Second, the wire is HOT! Don't ask how I personally know this. Please. When running a hot wire cutter, if the wire starts to glow, it's waaaaay too hot.
Also, did I mention the fumes are harmful? Use ventilation - outside is best if you can.
Number 1 allows me to reach into the interior of a wide sheet. I have built mountains from only one piece by using tapered cutting, and stacking the cutout on top and repeating.
Number 2 has about 16" cutting span. That's enough to reach across an Alt TTrak straight. With that, I made the Ranch module in one pass.
It's a plain double module box. I flipped it upside down, and free-hand drew the terrain contour on the fascia. Same thing on the back, but I made sure that there was a bit of difference in them.
Then, in went the foam, glued in tight. Once set (it was a day or two before I got back to it) I slid the wire of cutter #2 along the wood profile, keeping in contact the whole way. A little wiggling also helps with the shaping. It was that easy.
Cutter #3 is the smallest of the three, but is a bit wide. I've used all of them in one way or another.
One way I'll mention. I clamped #2 is a work-mate table, with a piece of ply added. The wire is at an angle, with one end into a slot in the edge of the plywood. By sliding a sheet of foam through this, a slope is cut. Setting the wire angle allows for managing the grade, if using the piece for roadbed.
How you can use one (or all) of them is limited by your imagination.
Oh, did I mention? LOTS of ventilation, the fumes are toxic!
No comments:
Post a Comment