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Hi Dakka.

Just wondering how people cut pink insulation foam. I am trying to make a meteor shaped object. I bought some pink insulation foam but the it turns out that the sheets are too thin. So, I cut out two square sections of it and glued them together using PVA glue to form basically a rectangular'ish cube. Now, I want to carve out corners and such to give it a more natural look instead of just a big, dumb brick-lookin' thing. I went and bought a hot foam cutter, but this one doesn't have a wire in it. It is basically just a rod that has an electric current run through it and it heats up. When I use it to carve out the corners, it doesn't make clean cuts. Instead, it just melts the plastic and doesn't give me a straight, smooth look. Also, it forms "strings" of plastic that are sticky and what-not and it is making a mess...

What am I doing wrong? Perhaps the tool I have sucks? I went to Hobby Lobby and nobody there has ever heard of a hot-wire foam cutter. -_- Perhaps, I should just be using a hobby knife?

On the quite dense foams I always used to cut mine with an old serrated knife- or an old hacksaw blade. That gave me quite clean edges which could then be sealed with pva and painted.

What dirkthe1 said, i tend to use an old bread knife like this
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The cutting lines are alittle staggered but its better than trying to hot wire the stuff but since your trying to make a rock like shape the stagered lines may help it to look more natrual.

I got a cheap hot-wire cutter at Michael's and it works awesome. Uses two D batteries to run the only complaint is how flat of an angle you can cut. I have seen plans on the internet to make a foam cutting table that I intend to make once i get back in terrain building (aka when I can reclaim the babies room)

Hot wire cutter and serrated bread knife are the tools I use. I cut a LOT of foam. Those two things are like bread and butter. They compliment one another perfectly. I also use hobby knives to carve features into them, like cliff faces, etc. if I need to.

*TIP*
If you get a serrated bread knife, get one as long as you can (12" would be great) and get as thin a blade as possible. If you need to cut gradual inclines like, say, a beachhead, you will appreciate the long reach of the blade and being able to bend it for a flatter cut is priceless.



Ghidorah

It's been a long time since I've done it, but I used to use a sanding block I got from a hardware store to shape edges on rock forms, I'm not sure what the correct term for it is, but it was a fairly flat rectangle of foam covered with sandpaper, it left the surfaces really smooth but you were still able to do sharp edges. Not directly related to how you cut the foam, but it's cheap and worth a try if you're trying to shape a rock.