Hey everyone, I’m making a mountain out of XPS foam, and am trying to cover the seam joints in the board. The thing that came to mind is just to use some expanding spray foam on the surface, then cut from there. My preference is to use a hot wire for the shaping after the spray foam cures, but I know that certain foam products generate toxic fumes when cut.
What’s the best canned spray foam for use with a hot wire cutter, or do I need to find another way of hiding cracks?
as far as i know, all canned spray foam releases some fumes when heated … and i also assume that these may be [to a certain extent] toxic, but if you have adequate ventilation you should be okay …
of course your mileage may vary, lol
Done it, works fine.
I have used the spray foams to seal gaps in masonry and such but even with “practice” I always seem to get way more foam than I want or need, and until I can resolve that problem for me it would be overkill to use spray foam to fill the gaps between pieces of foam scenery. I’d be cutting away and discarding an awful lot of dried foam.
Perhaps “rrebell” has found a way to control or minimize this?
I just use Sculptamold.
Dave Nelson
I mainly used it to fill voids in stacked foam on mountains.
In a different thread (which of course now I can’t find again) someone said that the toxic fumes only occur if the cutting surface temperature is over a certain amount of heat, and that the Woodland Scenics wire cutter is set to have a maximum temperature lower than that so it’s safe to use.
Yep, it was proubly me from resurch many years ago. Can’t seem to find my data sheets, other wise I would repeat it but I think it was toxic was released at 467degrees and WS cutter has a max temp of 425degrees. At the time I started cutting foam I experimented alot and talked to a lot of experts including forensic electrical experts (had to do with safety of running low voltage wires though foam if I recall), and of course I talked to the experts at Woodland Scenics.