I didn’t do a search, so excuse me if this is old… I’ve been building some blanks and all the scrap is killing me. I’m using extruded, and I know most of you are into the eps. I know that they take back scrap and recycle it, but being a business man, I can’t seem to let it go!! I found this: demandfoamcutting.com/recyk it’s basically a yard trash bagger hooked up to chicken wire. You can cut your scrap into packing material and sell it to local pack and ship companies. I found that the going rate for a bag of foam peanuts is about $20, so I figure I’ve thrown away hundreds of dollars already this week!!! So I got one all hooked up, and it won’t heat up. I’m using 1" chicken wire from the Home Depot. It’s galvanized, is this why it’s not working?? Any help would be great. I’m using the wicks voltage regulator, and when I fire it up, I smell smoke. This obviously doesn’t happen when cutting blanks, what up???
not chicken wire, use nichrome wire. Or guitar strings if you are really on a budget.
Yeah, I know. I’m using nichrome to hotwire, but I’m looking for material with a 1" geometric pattern, you know? That’s why I tried chicken wire, wondered if galvanized made a difference, or maybe if the open edges on the cut chicken wire was cock blockin’ me?? But, I appreciate the response!! I think this is the most profitable way to use up the scrap more important send less to the dump. I figure on at least a bagfull per billett (Dow billetts are smaller, maybe 3-4 bags from eps billett scrap?). But seriously, every swaylocker doing this has at least one pack and ship company in town I’m sure, tell 'em you’ll beat the going rate by a buck or two and deliver it!! Reminds me of when the ding repair guy would buy fiberglass rail clippings, I loved that!!!
that would either be your transformer or your regulator doesn`t have enough v.a. to heat the wire its to thick. anyway the galivenizer puts of some nasty fumes (toxic) another way is to string up a cutter to look like a square tennis racket wires not touching and that would do the trick
yeah, what if you made some kind of wooden square, with wood pegs sticking out of the frame, and one way weave one wire in between the pegs going back in forth, so it’s one continuious wire, but it’ll cut into a bunch of long ways shapes. THen just go back the other ways to get your little cubes.
So I got it built, the tennis raquet idea was what did it. I’ll post some pics later. The missing link was using an eye hook to go from the bottom grid to the top. When I fired it up, I had the voltage regulator at 115, so I just plugged it into a computer overload switch (so I had a fuse between the power and the wire), and it worked great at plain old 115 volt shop power. Kinda dangerous contraption, but it worked perfectly. UNFORTUNATELY, I took it to my buddy at the pack and ship I use for sending out boards. He showed me how heavy a bag of my packing stuff was next to some real packing peanuts, pretty drastic. Plus, the foam’s too rigid. Anyway, maybe I could find someone who’s not concerned with shipping weight, and just needs void fill…or just back to the drawing board. I’ll give it away to someone who could use it instead of sending it to the dump. Again, I’m using Dow foam and maybe EPS would have a better go, especially anybody using 1lb. But thanks for all the imput. It was a cool project, and I built mine for about $50: $40 for the bag holder (you could design this yourself, but I liked the one from Ace with the wheels) some scrap 1x2, a handful of finish nails (didn’t heat up or short the hotwire) and about 50 feet of ni-chrome 25 ga. Again, hope this helps somebody out there, if nothing else it made my scrap a little smaller, and easier to bag up.
Drew
maybe a greener approach would be to tear the foam up by hand without the use of a hot wire and bag it. Then ebay it.
found this FWIW: http://www.directron.com/styrofoam.html
Rio
yes you could but wherei s the fun in that? by the way you just made an ice cutter used on the old school ice machines that produced slab ice give em some tools and a beatup truck u is a perfeshkinal tech now
In an interview with Yvon Chouinard he mentioned scrap foam being used as dog bed filler. He said something about never having enough for the dog bed people. I suspect it would have to be broken down to fairly small size?
I have been building boards, 1 complete and 4 in progress, using a pure re-use model. I work for a large company and watch the recycling bins for big pieces of EPS that I glue up and hotwire for boards. I find more foam than I have time to convert into boards that way. Been scratching my head for ideas of where I can find a continuous stream of cast off foam to scratch my building itch. I think Benny was close to the mark with the geofoam scraps from his local Cal-trans project.