I agree w/ Puckdropper. I have made my own hotwire cutter the same way.
Also a kitchen knife works ok. I have a jig saw blade that is basially a
razor blade. You can make your own by taking a carbon steel blade and
using a belt sander to put a blade on. I would try the silicone spray,
or teflon spray too on a kitchen knife or jig saw blade.. don't re-use
the kitchen knife after that.

On 11/2/2012 11:17 PM, Puckdropper wrote:
JayPique wrote in news:0124da3f-f281-46ad-9165-
:

Any ideers?

JP

Depends on how big of mess you want to make. A serated knife will cut
through foam effectively, but creates a bunch of static charged dust that
gets all over the place.

A long thin (really thin) non-serated blade will make less mess, but at
the expense of signifcantly increased drag as you try to cut through the
material. A sharp and honed blade does help quite a bit.

A hot wire foam cutter would be the next best thing. If you make your
own, you can do it for a fraction of the cost of the commercial ones. I
used a model train set transformer and some replacement hot-wire tool
wire (from the hobby shop) as the base of mine. The wire needs to be
stretched between a couple of posts for straight cuts, but that's easy
enough from a woodworking standpoint. If you're interested, I can point
you to more detailed instructions.

For carving, a SurForm rasp does a great job at making a mess and a good
job at carving.

Puckdropper