Good polystyrene shaper (electric/heat)

[Mallard60022]

I have a cheese wire style electric cutter but I am not overwhelmed with it as a tool for shaping smooth contours on polystyrene once it is in place. Has anyone come across a heated cutter with (say) a blade, maybe like a knife?  Using a rasp makes an awful mess that gets everywhere and is a complete nightmare to clear up, even with a vacuum.

Thanks

Phil 

Edited April 17, 2019 by Mallard60022

[spikey]

I once succeeded in making a workable device by wiring a "blade" formed from part of a tin can to the largest bit I had for a 25W mains Antex iron.  Looked decidely Heath Robinson but did what was required of it perfectly well.

 

Have you looked the the "irons" that aeromodellers use for shrinking the plastic film with which they cover some model planes?  They're essentially soldering irons with what amounts to a miniature clothes iron instead of an ordinary bit.  You can usually pick one up cheap on Ebay.

[2ManySpams]

Ducky, if you are using a hot cutter on the polystyrene in your loft be really careful if the space isn't well ventilated. Depending upon what the polystyrene is made from it can give off some really nasty fumes.

 

I've always used a fine toothed 12" hacksaw blade (not in the hacksaw) to shape the polystyrene. It can be curved in use and IMO gives a much more realistic flow to the landform than a hot wire. There is obviously more mess but an old vacuum sorts that out if you use it as you go. 

[ejstubbs]

11 hours ago, Mallard60022 said:

Has anyone come across a heated cutter with (say) a blade, maybe like a knife?

 

Quite a few of the hot wire styrofoam cutters on eBay and Amazon come with a knife/pointy thing option as well.  I recently bought this one, because I am too lazy to make my own, I don't like making excessive mess, and I hate vacuuming up tiny balls of expanded polystyrene which try to statically cling to everything else in the room, including me, rather than going inside the vacuum.

[Mallard60022]

50 minutes ago, 2ManySpams said:

Ducky, if you are using a hot cutter on the polystyrene in your loft be really careful if the space isn't well ventilated. Depending upon what the polystyrene is made from it can give off some really nasty fumes.

 

I've always used a fine toothed 12" hacksaw blade (not in the hacksaw) to shape the polystyrene. It can be curved in use and IMO gives a much more realistic flow to the landform than a hot wire. There is obviously more mess but an old vacuum sorts that out if you use it as you go. 

Thanks Spammers. The loft is too well ventilated but I appreciate your comment and will use a fanny when there is little through draft.

Merci

Ar$£

[Silly Moo]

I have one of those ones with a straight piece of metal a bit like a wand, bought off eBay it works well.

 

I have seen some clips on YouTube demonstrating styrofoam scenery sculpting using a small chef’s blow torch, this seems to work well but could result in burning the house down! 

 

The stryrofoam/blowtorch method seems to be favoured by war gamers who do actually have some very good, creative and cost saving scenery tutorials. 

[Ian Morgan]

We had a couple of wand-style cutters from eBay (China) that did a great job terraforming our layouts for the Great Model Railway Challenge last year, but both failed soon after, so not a good long-term investment.

 

On Freshwater, I used a ceramic kitchen knife. These are amazingly sharp, harder than steel (second only to diamond) but are brittle, so make sure you don't try to twist them. It cuts foam very cleanly with no mess and no fumes.