Foamcore and hot cutters Re: Terrain

***
Some foamcore consists of thin sheets of styrene sandwiching a layer of
dense foam. That MIGHT be fine with a hot wire cutter, but I'd assume
that
the styrene would melt along the edge. Instead of a square cut you'd end
up
with a round cut.
***

My limited understanding of how the hot cutter works is that it's
actually
bursting the bubbles that make up the styro 'foam', with the melted
plastic
shrinking back from the wire, via surface tension(?). Done right, the
wire
stays relatively clean. However, with solid styrene, even thin pieces,
I'd
think it'd goop up pretty ugly...

Not to mention prolly break the wire. This has happened many times to me
when I've actually tried to push the wire through the foam instead of
letting the plastic part on it's own.

Slow cutting, with a slow sawing motion to keep a hot section of wire in
almost contact is de riguer, but most folks that work with it already
know
that, so forgive the blithering.

By the way, when foamcore was mentioned in this context, I figured that
the
card was stripped from the thin foam, in which case I'd think, but not
guarantee, that the wire would work fine.

Further by the way, I've seen 'styrofoam' stamped on the blue stuff, so,
either the term has gone the way of the zipper, or it's TM for more than
the hard, craft stuff.

The_Beast

-Douglas J. Evans, curmudgeon

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