Techiques for making clean cuts in foam

[anwar]

What are the common techniques people use to make clean cuts of foam ?

How about making those slanted cuts needed for hinges on control surfaces ?

I have been getting mostly ARF foamies, so I don't have much experience in this, but what I have seen people do is to stick some thin tape over the line you want to cut, and then cut using a sharp knife (the brand "xacto" seems to be a common choice here).

Comments ?

[sandeepm]

Hi Anwar,
I am also a new bie in this field but gained a lot experience in building my own depron cessna 182 recently (excluding the wing), the original cessna 182 was from sai. i found building with Depron much easier then any other material. since i only have 8mm depron sheet, it is not possible for me to bend the same like a real looking wing.
well as far as cutting of depron is concern, i found it as easy as i cut paper, my views says, depron can be smoothly cut if one has a rubber self healing cutting mat. cutting depron for  hinges is not a difficult task. you can take help of youtube videos for tutorials. after watching such videos and working on waste depron, i now feel comfortable in cutting. the only difference is i use hot glue gun to paste pieces of depron here, even i tried hot glue as a part of hinges also.

Sandeep

[anwar]

For the benefit of everyone (and as time permits), can you expand on the resources that helped you ?  For example, what are the Youtube videos and other weblinks that you used ?

Do you have a picture/link of a "rubber self healing cutting mat" ?

[sandeepm]

Hi anwar, You can check this Youtube link
1.
2.
3.

and for image of Cutting mat check this link
http://www.craftobsessions.co.uk/a3cuttingmat-3452.php
you can find these cutting these rubber cutting mat at a good stationery shops, and these are available in different sizes as well.

[anwar]

Much appreciated Sandeep.

Note: My new strategy is to act totally dumb, as it helps extract information out of people