Anyone tried it? I got the idea the other day.
I did a test today on a piece of eps and some random leftover cutout as template. Easier, faster, cheaper than a router setup (and poisonous!) and no mess.
Im gonna make a template for futures and give it a try soon. Can you think of any downsides?
Reinventing the wheel… but, if it works, I guess???
You think burning plastic is less poisonous than routing it?
Yup, but doing a board on budget so Im appreciating any savings I come about. Guess its about the same as a room of dust, but smells like shit!
I like it bb30. Very similar to a body board design I have been working on. How well does it track?
Sorry for the diversion WB. Carry on…
Seems like a dremel tool would be better than gases released from melting/burning poly"styrene."
I believe gdaddy has suggested using a Forstner bit to drill multiple overlapping holes.
I guess it would work. But what’s the tip of your soldering iron like when you are done? Kind of burnt and sticky? Also, it would be kind of hard to judge the depth as you plunge it in. Not that there’s anything wrong with a burnt stick tip and no depth control.
(I fear I could take that analogy a bit too far, so I’ll leave it at that)
No worse than hot wiring a blank??? I did some little perpendicular ‘mini-stringers’ recently along the sides of a center box in EPS. I used an old butter knife and a torch… heated the knife and used it to carve some tiny slots for the stringers. Worked fine.
The goo left on the tip is easy enough to wipe of with papertowels when its still hot. 
Yeah, probably a good idea to make some kind of jig to fix the iron at the right height and angle.
Off Healthfully.com: “When burned, Styrofoam releases more than 90 different hazardous chemicals and the effects are vast and harmful to the health of any person present for the burning.”
But I regularly hot wire the stuff. Turn on the fans and open the doors.
Downside of burning fin slots is making sure you get the depth right, so you need a guide of some sort.
It’s a bugger trying to get another 1/8" depth in a too-shallow slot.
Oh dear. I read somewhere that EPS only gives off water vapour when hotwired. I thought only PU Gives off cyanide.
What temperature do you put the iron at?
I’ve tried many, many experiments with hotwires and rarely found it easier than other hand tools:
The blade melting the EPS and then it forming blobs was the worst problem.
For hot-wiring in a router fashion there’s this stuff called Rene 41 wire which is supposed to be much stiffer and plunge cut better than NiChrome. They do sell items that are just like a soldering iron called hot knives that have built-in depth control.
https://www.harborfreight.com/130-watt-heavy-duty-hot-knife-60313.html
I don’t see a problem with using the iron other than the mess on the iron. I use a U shaped piece of NiChrome attached to a piece of ceramic tile. I have several different Us for different style boxes and I like not having any dust. I usually just freehand the cuts after I mark them out. If you go slow it comes out really tight.
Nice, pretty much exactly what I am trying to achieve.
For all that trouble and $$$ you could buy a Futures Jig. A trim. Router is a handy tool to have around the shop. But I guess how many $$$ in time and money you put into it is irrelevant here on Sways.
Haha, Soldering iron was $10, I pretty much have the wood and free access to lasercutter + Im studying architecture and enjoy the trouble of designing and building But otherwise you would be right I guess.
I would be concerned with the finish the iron leaves on the foam. Seems it would leave a slick surface that is hard to bond to. Hot wiring a blank gets sanded after rough shaping it. I always rough sand a box before installing for that very reason. Anything gained by the ease of an iron would be cancelled by trying to rough up the box mortise and not muck it up.
