# One Step Closer to a Career as a Mad Scientist



## phillipjmerrill (Sep 23, 2007)

Well, I made something in the garage that uses electricity and I managed to not kill myself or burn the house down. Score one for me!







I have two great stacks of styrofoam sheets that are waiting to be made into tombstones. I also was able to find these even larger sheets of styrofoam at another construction site only a block away from my house.







I used a handsaw to cut this cross and base out of one of the large sheets of styrofoam. Cutting styrofoam with a handsaw is very messy and limits you to only straight cuts. I want to be able to have curved details on most of my tombstones, so I needed to devise another method of cutting styrofoam; one that allows for curved cuts and preferably one that is less messy. I know that many haunters use a tabletop hot wire foam cutter. That project seemed a little daunting to me, so I looked online for a less complex version. I found a couple of instructables for handheld versions of the hot wire foam cutter that seemed fairly simple. You can see the aforementioned stacks of styrofoam in the background of this picture.







Most of the instructables for handheld hot wire foam cutters call for wood in the construction of the base. I opted to use a length of PVC pipe that I had laying around. I applied heat and bent the pipe to create the arms of the hot wire foam cutter. I drilled holes in the arms, close to the ends and inserted eye bolts fastened with wing nuts.







Here is a close-up of the eye bolt/wing nut assembly.







Another close-up at an angle.







I stole the nichrome wire from a hair dryer that I found at the D.I. and I used an A/C D/C power converter or "wall wort" also from the D.I. to power the hot wire foam cutter.







Here is a cose-up of the wires attached to the eye bolt. No soldering required.







This picture shows the power cables secured with cable ties to keep them out of the way.







Here is a chunk of styrofoam on which I have drawn a simple design.







Here is the finished cut. Nice and smooth and virtually no mess. I am excited to cut out some tombstone forms using my new hot wire foam cutter that I made by myself.


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## Ravenfell Manor (Oct 2, 2011)

That looks like a cool idea, and considering how much foam gets cut in this household it might be something I will consider trying. 
I hope this isn't taken as a slight of any kind but those are some nice butt cheeks in the bottom pic lol.


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## phillipjmerrill (Sep 23, 2007)

I knew that someone would interpret my innocent foam cutting in a crude way. I just didn't know if it would be butt cheeks or cleavage. I guess it's kind of a Freudian thing.


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## kurtnotkirk (Nov 17, 2012)

Hi, I used to shop at D.I. when I lived in SLC several years ago... What is the voltage on the wall wart?


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## phillipjmerrill (Sep 23, 2007)

The specs on the wall wort I am using for this foam cutter are: input 120 V 80 Hz 15 w output 13 V 800 mA. All of the instructables that I read said that anything at or above a 12 V 500 mA output would be enough juice to cut styrofoam.


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