Saturday, September 22, 2012

Using Foam Board Cutter To Slice Through Foam

By Casandra Newton


Polystyrene is something that is used everywhere. Starting from insulation to crafts, it is the most widely used lightweight material because of its tendency to resist water and ease of crafting. However, to ensure high degree of quality one needs a foam board cutter. This device shall ensure you get the best quality pieces from a large block of Styrofoam or sheet. Moreover, making bulletin boards, toys, models and sign posts from polystyrene is not possible without the use of tools.

Insulation is something that Styrofoam excels at. With hollow walls, it is hard to insulate the insides of a house because these walls cannot retain heat. Now, there are two methods to fix this problem and both use Styrofoam. First is to use a liquid polystyrene spray to lace the insides of hollow walls and the second is to manually place polystyrene blocks or sheets inside hollow spaces. To do the latter one has to make use of special crafting tools so as to shape large sheets according to the walls.

There are in total three types of crafting devices for polystyrene. A hot wire tool is one that uses a wire heated to a high temperature to slice through blocks, make holes in boards and to craft intricate objects. A hot knife is also used for the same and it may be electrically heated or you may opt to simply heat a butter knife up on a burner and slice through the block. Finally, one can also cut through Styrofoam using a utility knife.

The cheapest way to manage polystyrene is to use a utility knife. This multipurpose knife costs almost nothing and can be used for many other activities. The only problem with a utility knife is the lack of precision.

A hot wire iron manages to give smooth edges to a Styrofoam piece simply because polystyrene exhibits a natural tendency to melt under the slightest of heat. Thus, instead of cutting through a sheet of polystyrene, a hot wire iron simply glides through it melting any foam that comes in contact with it.

Hot knife is an excellent alternative to a hot wire iron. It uses the same principle of heating Styrofoam to cut it into manageable size or intricate shapes but it lacks the accuracy offered by a hot wire iron. This is because, the knife edges are thicker and have more surface area than that of a hot wire iron.

Before actually using any of the cutting devices, it is necessary to first draw an outline of the exact design that you shall be using. A marker or a sketch pen should suffice for this. Once the lines are etched, you can heat up the wire iron or a knife and slice through the Styrofoam.

Using a foam board cutter reduces wastage and makes the best designs. However, what you need to be aware of when using these devices is that they are accident prone. A knife is easy to drop on your feet and a hot iron wire may just burn the skin if you are not careful. Therefore, stay extra cautious when playing with Styrofoam and a crafting tool.




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