This is just one of several personal manufacturing projects that I have actually started working on. It is currently work in progress.

Hot Wire Milling

A hot wire mill is basically a computer controlled X/Y/Z table with a hot wire on it. When the hot wire probe comes in contact with styrofoam, it incinerates the styrofoam. With proper software, I should be able to manufacture some nifty N-scale layouts for my son

The basic overview diagaram is shown below:

The mill consists of the following components:

Base Channel

The styrofoam to be milled is inserted into the base channel. The channel has to be large enough to contain the entire piece of styrofoam. The base channel does not move.

Bridge

The bridge rides on top of the base channel and moves back and forth in the X directon.

Crane

The crane rides inside the bridge and moves back and forth in the Y direction.

Hot Wire Probe

The hot wire probe rides inside of the crane assembly and moves up and down in the Z direction. The tip of the hot wire probe removes portions of the styrofoam.

Construction Issues

The entire mill is contructed out of angle aluminum and galvenized steel closet door races.

The closet door races are nomally used for hanging overlapping closet doors. The simple diagram below should convey the idea of how they work:

{The usual abrupt ending.}