Foam cutter for making buildings

[quitcherbitchen]

Foam Cutter

foam cutter bottom view

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re adjustment

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I made a foam cutter to make buildings out of Polystyrene white foam that I dumpster dived out of trash cans. The cutter itself is made with things I salvaged or found. The nichrome wire #26 is the only thing I bought online for $2.65. everthing including the power supply was junk I found in my garage or someone's trash bin. It works really good but the window cuts still need to be done by razor as getting the hot wire into the middle would be too time time consuming to disassemble. I have made many buildings and they all come apart to store using magnets.

Building for targets

magnets

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folded buildings

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My latest creation is an Atlantic wall bunker with an FPV 20mm cannon that has an LED muzzle flash as well as sound.

FPV Atlantic Wall Bunker

I would like to figure a way to wire this up for IR battle with the tanks. I would have to put an IR Receiver on it somehow make it like the pill box targets I see advertised. Still working on it but the kids love it. I have already tweaked it several times to get better focus with higher lenses. The macro 3.6 lenses make target acquisition difficult. We were using it as an Anti aircraft gun against my RC Storch or Stuka that would attempt to bomb it.

1100 mm Stuka D-5

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Loads of fun. Bomb loads.
Also, what Battle of Berlin wouldn't need a Reichstag to complete the authenticity.

Reichstag

This beauty took about three evenings to make and it also comes apart for storage and transport. It also gave my daughter an A is Greek history class in 5th grade. Little did those people know what it actually was I used wedding cake columns for the front and everything else is foam. I have learned that coating the foam with drywall mud makes them smooth and easy to sand. Also, makes them more durable and heavy which helps with wind. Wind will knock them over without a good heavy base. Just a skim coat of mud makes them heavy enough not to get blown over until the wind gets to 12 knots. I have lots of other foam targets too. I will slowly post them here as I get time to resize the pictures to fit this website.

[Estnische]

That’s great work. I used to use an electric kitchen knife for my slot car scenery. A bit messy.

[quitcherbitchen]

Here is some of my buildings on battle day. Everyone loved the large amount of buildings. The scale seemed just about right. The Reichstag should obviously be higher up on a larger foundation but it looked great.

[Son of a gun-ner]

Excellent

[Kaczor]

Great!

[Jimster]

Very creative and ingenious engineering. Helps bring the models to life with a detailed surrounding.