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How I use hotwire to make signs, figures, personalized name plaques, decorations, holiday decor and more. It's a fun, inexpensive, easily mastered art skill that provides hours of entertainment and creativity. Using virtually free materials, many different pieces can be made. Other possibilities include dioramas, spanish missions, sillouette pictures, model railroad scenics, and so on.
What you need:
1. Letters, printed on cardstock from your word processing program.
2. EPS foam or Styrofoam blanks. Packing boxes and insulation panels are the most common forms to use. Available at businesses that receive refrigeratable items, like pharmacies, laboratories, etc. The big box stores have insulation and or styrofoam panels.
3. Hotwire machine. I make my own, which will be in another instructable. They are readily available at hobby shops or on the internet.
4. Acrylic paint as needed. Glue to mount letters and strips of edging material.
5. Straight pins.
6. Piece of cardboard, matboard, masonite or material of your choice to mount letters. I have glued them to tile for a special effect!
7. Colored paper to make edge strips for your sign.
What you need:
1. Letters, printed on cardstock from your word processing program.
2. EPS foam or Styrofoam blanks. Packing boxes and insulation panels are the most common forms to use. Available at businesses that receive refrigeratable items, like pharmacies, laboratories, etc. The big box stores have insulation and or styrofoam panels.
3. Hotwire machine. I make my own, which will be in another instructable. They are readily available at hobby shops or on the internet.
4. Acrylic paint as needed. Glue to mount letters and strips of edging material.
5. Straight pins.
6. Piece of cardboard, matboard, masonite or material of your choice to mount letters. I have glued them to tile for a special effect!
7. Colored paper to make edge strips for your sign.
4
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1
Jan 22, 2009. 9:05 AMMrE
says:
Very Cool indeed. especially since I am getting into metal casting, I know of the lost foam casting method where you make a sand mold of these and leave them buried in the sand. add a sprew and tree lines for hot metal to fill all the voids and then pour. The hot metal eats the foam out and then you let it cool. Bamm next thing you know metal cast letters from your original. So again thank you and very cool.
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129
Jan 22, 2009. 10:40 AM
Creativeman (author)
says:
Creativeman (author)
says:
Thanks for the comp. I've never done that but would like to see how it works. Show me if you do it. I've made concrete molds and had some success. Cman
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Feb 17, 2012. 12:31 AMpaqrat
says:
paqrat
says:
I attempted lost foam some years ago. My torch was not hot enough to get the metal fluid enough to flow into mold from crucible so the sand casting was out. I was able to use a plaster of paris mould (with wire reinforcement) and was able to melt the metal in the mould, getting it plastic enough to fill the mould. I got pretty good results but the plaster didn't hold up well. The concrete moulds you made, were they regular concrete or the type used in kilns?
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5
Aug 30, 2010. 3:48 PMData643
says:
I cut out some letters with one of those once. I tried to spray paint them, but the paint ate through about 1/2 of the letters
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