When my kids were little I once carved the jack-o-lanterns with a saber saw – missed the spirit of the process, but boy did it work. Faced today with shaping a sizable mountain out of layers of glued-up foam board on my layout I hit upon technique that makes a sureform tool look digging a trench with a teaspoon. I put a wire brush on my cut-off tool (a habah fright special) and went at it. After just a few minutes I got quite good at building the kind of contours I wanted and BOY is it fast. Of course it creates a blizzard of debris (future ground foam?) but it sure does the job. I wore a hat and used a respirator. Maybe I’m not the first to discover this technique but I highly recommend it if you are working in a space that allows you to manage the mess.
What’s the manufacturer and model# for the wire brush and where did you buy it?
It is a 4 1/2 grinder from Harbor Freight, on sale right now for around $20. Here’s a link. http://www.harborfreight.com/heavy-duty-4-1-2-half-inch-angle-grinder-91223.html Glenn
I purchased the wire brush with the grinder. There are a number to choose from. The type I used is in the lower right side of the image in this link. http://www.harborfreight.com/7-piece-grinder-brush-kit-90976.html Glenn
you can keep that mess. I’ll stick with hot wire when doing foam on layout
You can buy a mini hacksaw, which is a clamp that holds one end of the blade and leaves about 6" sticking out the other side. Works very well for making large cuts out of extruded foam, and most of the waste is in large pieces that are easily removed.
Your way sounds like ripping boards to width with a router instead of a table saw. Sure, you can do it, and it’s pretty fast, but why convert the waste into reams of sawdust instead of strips of wood, which can be used for other projects?
I’m sure the hot wire device is the preferred method. I looked at the Micro-mark site and their economy model is around $42. With the many expenses essential to building a layout, I couldn’t justify the hot-wire tool. Maybe in the future. Thanks for the input.
Quite the opposite. I think most of us are suggesting alternatives to the hot wire tool that cost a couple of dollars. For myself, I completely agree that a hot wire tool is too much to spend for something you’ll probably never use again once you’ve got your terrain shapes cut.
On the other hand, my hobby time is at a premium, and I just can’t see using a method that’s going to fling large quantities of pink dust all over my layout area, which I will then have to clean up. I’d rather spend my time building or operating.
In my low-humidity environment that [#dots] plastic dust would stick to EVERYTHING! (The ceiling, the walls, everything on and under the layout, me…)
OTOH, cutting with a blade doesn’t decorate the world - and I can usually use the cut off chunks elsewhere.
Saving time shaping landforms, only to waste a lot more time cleaning up the mess, seems like a questionable tradeoff. I’ll reserve the wire brush for removing paint and rust from 1:1 scale metal objects, thank you
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I agree the brush would do the job, but it sure must make a mess. Using a hand held brush would make a lot less mess.
Using an anti static spray can help reduce the mess sticking to other surfaces. I have used it when shaping foam with a Surform tool.
For a hot knife Harbour Freight has one, usually around $15 - $20. It is a knife blade, not a wire tool. Haven’t used mine yet, but my friend has used his very happily. Make sure you have good ventilation when using heat to cut the foam.
Good luck,
Richard
I find a bread and or steak knife work just fine and leave lots of good size chunks for other projects.
Brent[C):-)]
Thanks Gwolfe. I’m working on a removable foam board mountain and all my shaping/grinding will be done outside high on a remote mountaintop. A minute of raking and bagging then off to the local dump.
There is a video on U-Tube on the process of carving/filing foamboard I was completely blown away with. I never even thought about doing it this way. I was impressed and that isn’t easy to do.
Nothing was mentioned about any dust problem, but it looks like according to this thread, that he ‘forgot’ to bring this up.
Ok, how about someone holding a ‘shop vac’ hose while you do the shaving to collect the dust?
A Shop Vac is a virtual necessity, regardless how you chip away at the foam.
Can you provide a link to the video on U-Tube, sounds interesting, even if it doesn’tremember to mention the necissity to clean up the results of your work.
Have fun,
Richard
Shaping dense extruded foam is covered in a series from 2006 on YouTube by Evert Claeson, search BigE61. Includes how he finished his mountains.