I know some of you are experiencing some of the same problems I have with hotwires burning into the profile templates, rippled surfaces from snags, etc. Nothing catastrophic, just a general pain and less than optimal blanks.
I bought several “T-Nuts”, screwed two together on a bolt, Dremel cut the bolt, drilled lengthwise through it, threaded two of these homemade spools on the wire so they track on the profile templates and… problem solved. I thought I was so smart and clever…
Then I remembered my mom’s old sewing machine and those little spools called bobbins.
Ah, what the hell??? My wife has her grandmother’s old singer with a drawer full of bobbins. Funny thing is, she doesn’t even sew. Guess she won’t miss a couple of them, eh???
Great tip! I tried this out last night with sewing bobbins and got a wicked smooth cut. I got a tiny bit of tear out on the corners when the bobbins would drag on the template though. So I took a few pieces of half inch thick scrap foam and placed them between the template and the foam so the bobbins wouldn’t catch. This worked pretty well too. But I’d say you should attach the template in a few more spots than normal to make sure that it doesn’t sag. And make sure the scrap foam pieces are smaller than the template, otherwise you’ll get a bump and have to fix it afterwards.
Beautiful!!! I needed this about 2 weeks ago when we tried out our first hotwire (using splintery luan plywood rocker guides). The nichrome wire kept catching on the wood even though it was sanded pretty smooth AND the wire sometimes hit a hard spot in the #2 EPS and burned the rocker guide…
Out of the 4 blanks we did, I get the “challenge” of shaping what we came to call the “Franken-blank” due to all its hotwire gouges.
