Foam and cutter?

danbroad

danbroad

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Dan
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Hi there

I've found an old lockbox in the garage that I figure would make a great case for camera and lenses when not out with me and the Domke.

I just need to find some decent, fairly firm foam or expanded polystyrene blocks and a hot wire cutter [or just a 9V battery and some fuse wire.]

So , two questions - firstly, anybody here have some tips on reliable suppliers of the sort of foam I'm looking for; alternately, blocks of expanded polystyrene - any sellers of these [ideally 6-8" thick]?

And has anyone made a diy hotwire cutter recently? It's been about 15 years since I last tried this, and I've forgotten the resistance of the wire I'll need to get hot with a 9V push [Ohm's law, be damned..]

Cheers...!
 
right, well in the absence of any replies, I'll be the one to go first..

I've ordered some cut-to-size foam from eFoam.co.uk [which have an easy size-ordering template; I've ordered packaging grade foam.]

I've dug around on the internet and found these instructions...http://www.instructables.com/id/Hot-Wire-Foamcutter-Battery-Powered/

and so I'll be giving this a go. BTW, here's the legal bit: all links contain stuff you do at your own risk! If you promise not to burn down the house or choke on toxic fumes, I won't either....
 
Have you considered the foam than you just pluck cubes out of? The type that PELI have in their cases.
Very easy to use.


Kev.
 
I saw a thread similar to this about a month ago, someone found a place in the US that will cut the foam for you with a Computerised design provided by you
 
Tried that before, kev - works well, but my plans for this are a little... grander! [Hmmm....]

... hopefully nicely semicylindrical cutaways sized just right for my 200-500, 70-300, 50, 35 and 17-50.. and a nice space for the gripped camera. I always found that the pick'n'pluck foam looks a little unsightly after a few months use - always a few rectangles coming apart where they shouldn't... This is very much a home store - maybe to be packed into the car for trips, but mainly I know which lenses I'm going to take before I step out of the house...

Thanks for the advice, though. It is good stuff for its purpose.
 
I'll be interested to see how you get on. Been thinking of getting a large PELI box myself for all of my gear.
I wonder if hole cutters would do a clean cut for the lenses at high speed?

Kev.
 
Thanks, I'll let you know!

Old electric carving knives are used for foam cutting, so I don't see why a holesaw wouldn't achieve the same thing - although you'd have to keep stopping once you hit max depth, I suppose.

It's fairly easy to set up a wire cutter using any battery pack and some wire - the problems are finding the gauge of wire that has a decent enough resistance to get hot enough.
 
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