Department of Defense Sign

[foampro]

No doubt. The hotwire machine was bought way before the Shopbot. One advantage with the hotwire is I can cut my sheets of foam to the thickness I need them. Also I can paint each part seperatly if needed. Like the letters on this sign have gray sides and a white face. I painted the gray with a gravity feed gun and painted the white with a roller. Again, no you don't need a hotwire machine to make this sign but it helps.

Thanks for the posts!

[John L]

Is the hot wire CNC machine a modified shopbot type or some other brand? Just curious how this works. I have a shopbot - If I wanted to try routing blue foam, what bit type, feed and rpm's could anyone recommend?

Great work by the way!

Thanks!

[foampro]

No, it is specially made to cut styrofoam. If I remember correctly we used an 1/8" ballnose at 6ipm at 16,000rpm and a 20% overlap. It worked good with minor sanding and a quick once over with the heat gun it was clean.

[Dublinman]

Very cool work indeed! Are you putting anything on the blue foam to "harden" it. I cut a lot of foam when I got my machine but dismissed it after that. Clearly I was mistaken I'd like to make a logo of my sons school for their hall. It would be 12 feet up in the air above the principles head, so "relatively" safe. tx Dubliner

[foampro]

Blue foam would work great for your project. Find the unscored if you can.