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  1. #1
    Senior Member DemostiX's Avatar
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    Hot knife to cut nylon fabric

    I've seen serious hot knifes for many, many $. And I've often seen the suggestion of using a fine hot soldering tip to simultaneously cut/melt and sear the fabric edge, that tip against a steel straight-edge on a sheet of glass.

    But, a sewing forum just pointed to this hot knife not mentioned before here: a tip that holds an Exacto (tm) like blade.

    http://www.micromark.com/hot-knife-a...iron,9763.html
    Last edited by DemostiX; 07-31-2012 at 12:04.

  2. #2
    Senior Member XSrcing's Avatar
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    Used those many times while building r/c aircraft. Don't buy the super cheap ones.

  3. #3
    Senior Member JohnSawyer's Avatar
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    That's pretty cool, but I can't get near my dining room "cut table" with that one!
    "Do or do not, there is no try." -- Yoda


  4. #4
    Senior Member SwinginIt's Avatar
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    Man that's cool. I used to use a homemade one. Two screws in a piece of wood, a piece of thin copper wire running between the screws and wrapped around them and each end of wire going to a lantern battery, at least I think that's the battery I used. Wasn't great but worked.

  5. #5
    Senior Member
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    I think that the high temps would ruin the temper of the exacto blade allowing it to dull quickly so you just have an ultra fine point hot knife. The ultra fine point doesn't have enough mass to hold heat and would lose it's heat to the steel/aluminum straight edge and cut very slowly. At least that's how it plays out in my head.

    I'll stick to my high wattage soldering gun with a tile cutting tip. Heats up/cools off quickly with the pull of a trigger, reaches high temps with enough mass to stand up to a 6' aluminum straight edge...whats not to love?

    While glass makes a great hot knife cutting surface, tempered hardboard does a good job and is low cost, unbreakable and readily available in up to 4'x8' sheets for the large size of our projects.

  6. #6
    Senior Member digrat's Avatar
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    I use my son's woodburning kit, which uses a blade of sorts, but I bet you could use a soldering iron if you didn't mind cutting with a point instead. I believe either would be a viable and less costly option.
    -Digrat
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  7. #7
    Senior Member FLRider's Avatar
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    Bought a soldering gun yesterday actually just for this. It was $5.89 in the Automotive department (next to the car stereos) in Wal-Mart.

    Has a standard round tip, but it's easy enough to cut with using a straightedge. Makes for a little more waste on the side other than the measured one, but that's okay for me.

    I don't expect it to last more than a dozen or two projects, but that's okay. It was worth checking out at that price.

  8. #8
    Senior Member Running Feather's Avatar
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    Craft stores sell them with multiple tips. I find the spade tip works best for me. Holds more heat for searing while cutting.

    Think I paid about $12.
    2015 John Rock Spreadsheet.

    "If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you should do is STOP DIGGING "

  9. #9
    Senior Member MAD777's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JohnSawyer View Post
    That's pretty cool, but I can't get near my dining room "cut table" with that one!
    I'd like to see video of THAT!
    Mike
    "Life is a Project!"

  10. #10
    Senior Member JohnSawyer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MAD777 View Post
    I'd like to see video of THAT!
    Don't you mean the video showing the aftermath when my wife sees what I did?
    "Do or do not, there is no try." -- Yoda


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