Project help


I would like to cut some two inch thick styrofoam for an audio project.I started with a wire saw and it not only was a mess but the cut looked terrible.My next thought was to make a wire saw(so-to-speak).This one was to be powered by ac or dc.The wire would heat up and I could cut without the mess.I tryed by using a battery and it heated up the battery and scared the heck out of me.I made the saw out of some four layer plywood with handles and I can apply tension to the wire with a mechanism on the back of the saw.It looks cool but sits cold.Help.
kgveteran
The copper wire's resistance was probably too low for the battery. Use what Rives suggested.

Be careful with the variac. Most of them are not isolation tranformers, so your wire "blade" and its associated wiring will be electrically "hot". Touching it and a ground simultaneously would be very unsafe.
sean,I checked out some variacs on line and it's all coming together.I must now go to the,"surplus store".These guys have everything and cheap.I built a switchbox that turns on my triggerless amps for peanuts.All five amps using seperate 20a lines,overkill....absolutly.
the fumes were bad.I will be using a resperator.Saws are out as they make a mess and require me to sand to a paintable finish.Thanx guys.Keep the idea's coming .
While i haven't done anything like this, i think that a band saw would work pretty well. Just a guess though.

As far as your "wire saw" goes, be careful in regards to the fumes produced. I would make sure that you had plenty of ventilation and were wearing some type of mask.

In terms of what you are using for this wire saw, if you've got a good sized variac with a fuse on it, that's what you need. I would not use copper wire for several reasons. As Rives mentions, nickel chromium wire ( the stuff that they use for toasters ) would be ideal. I don't think that Rat Shack has this, but it would probably be worth checking out. Sean
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I started by using a copper wire.The lenth was about a foot.At one point it worked but the battery got hot and freaked me out.I'll take a ride today and let you know.Just to let you in on the project.I'm making RPG diffusers.Not perfect but the prototype works fine.
What kind of wire are you using? A Nickle Cromium wire probably available from radioshack and a 12 volt battery should work quite well.