WORKSHOP

Making a Hot Wire Cutter
for Styrofoam
by Warren Young

Like so many other things in life, we often stumble upon a gadget, machine, or technique that makes us wonder WHY WE DIDN'T THINK OF IT OURSELVES.

TO MY KNOWLEDGE, NONE OF THE TAXIDERMY supply houses in the U.S. or Canada offer a Styrofoam hot wire cutter, even though there are still hundreds of taxidermists in North America who prefer and enjoy carving their own fish and bird forms from Styrofoam.

An old timer, who'd been in the taxidermy business for more than thirty-five years, once asked me if there was a bandsaw in my studio. I would have dodged the question, but in spite of my embarrassment I took the hint and the man's advice. Once awakened to the primitive method I was using at the time, I invested in a real good bandsaw that I've been using ever since. I think most...
 

...Continued in the Fall 2003 Issue of Breakthrough.

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