Cutting Foam for Hard Cases, Etc. - Any Secrets?

[etrain16]

Beings your a 'Lectrician, you should be able to come up some VERY trick ideas for set up and power!
I use Ply wood for the frame on mine, makes it much stiffer and is still light enough too handle one handed ( for the small one) and the large one has a locking slider to adjust the size to what i'm cutting, big enough to cut sections of a full size air plane wing!

Oh, no doubt. I'm going 480V 3PH! I'll burn through that entire case in 2 seconds - hard shell and all!

 

[Ura-Ki]

You get that sucker working good, i'm going to put you to work with it!

 

[Lextruck]

Somehow I forgot on my second cut to draw the lines on the back side and cut it out so you can flip it over and not see the parts of the pen lines that didn't get removed. Should be obvious but you never know. I added a scope to mine and traced it on the front side after doing the initial on the back oops!!

 

[HB of CJ]

Make sure the foam does not absorb or trap excessive air moisture. Rust. If everything can be kept bone dry then you are good to go.

 

[Vaultman]

Looks like a project I may have to put on the to do list!

I do lots of woodworking so it looked like a good little project for me too.

 

[Mygrainman]

 

[K-22]

I've got 2 SpeedVault SV500 safes in our bedroom. They are great safes, but I'm having one problem with them that I haven't yet solved. The foam inserts need to be cut to fit the guns properly. I've tried cutting them with various knives, but I'm not getting good results - the foam collapses as I'm trying to cut, or I just get ragged/irregular cuts.

I'd really like to have a nice, sharp cut like you see in the inserts of Pelican cases for camera gear, guns, etc., something I plan to do for my suppressors eventually too. Looking online, it appears a number of folks like electric knives (like the ones some folks use to carve turkeys) to cut this foam. I'm not sure if that's actually the best way. So I'm reaching out to the smart folks on NWFA to see if they have a better suggestion.

I tried to get a photo of what the foam insert looks like - here is one photo from the internet that allows you to kind of see it:

View attachment 452931

Also, the foam in this insert is kind of flimsy, not dense like some hard cases, making cutting this stuff a little more difficult.

I'd love to hear your ideas.

I have see electric knives used that worked well. I recall buying some foam, and the store had an electric for their foam cutting needs. I have a bread knife that works well on foam.
Best,
Gary