Uchida Of America Foam Cutter, Plug in,Blue

This cutter works great right out of the box. Put the wire on, tightened it turned it on and was cutting foam. My son and I are working on a model railroad and we are using extruded foam for retaining walls, tunnel entrances and contouring. This cutter has made all those tasks so much easier. The foam is too thick for the retaining walls and this even allows us to stand the wall up and run it lengthwise to cut it down from 3/4" to 1/4". Has done everything we wanted it to.

Works fine. I just hope it lasts. It is very light-weight materials and the wire only lasted a very short time - maybe an hour of use.

It's okay--sort of, kinda. The cutting wire wasn't attached very well so we added a nut and bolt to improve the electrical connection. After cutting about half of the material required for our project the power supply burned out. We replaced the power supply with a slightly higher output unit we had on hand (a serendipitous event--it's not the sort of thing one usually has laying about.) Once the poor electrical connection and power supply issue were addressed the unit performed very well--that is to say the plastic base and the frame that holds the cutting wire worked once we replaced the electrical parts.If you consider it not as a foam cutter, but rather a collection of parts that will allow you to build yourself a foam cutter it's not a total waste of money. However if you are a normal person who doesn't want to spend time rebuilding a brand new tool, than you should save your money and either build one from scratch (there are many helpful videos available online) or plan on spending over $100 to get a well made tool.

This little rascal works like a charm on sheet styrofoam. The wire heats up quickly and makes short work of letters and shapes. I use it for making table top terrain for wargames and it does everything I ask. It came with two extra wires, and the tension on the wire is even adjustable. The table and the clearance from the arm to the wire could be larger, but for the bucks it can't be beat.

I found there was not enough power being supplied to the unit to get the wire hot enough which results in the wire cutting very slowly. Luckily I had some spare electrical parts and I connected a speed controller to a spare battery, that way I can now adjust the power and heat of the wire. There is also an adjustment screw under the base that tightens the wire because the wire will stretch as it heats or if you have a second pair of hands it helps if that person can put a little back pressure on the metal arm to keep the wire tight. You can't beat the price of this complete unit but it would be useful if it had a power controller. Overall I'm happy considering the cost of the unit.

After ordering another foam cutter that cost about three times as much (which was returned), this product provides a well-designed very easy to use wire foam cutter. I am using this to cut Styrofoam into watermelon shapes for a family reunion and this product does that very well. My recommendations are to use this outside for ventilation if you are doing lots of cuts and to get a wire brush or a green pad to remove residue from the wire as necessary. Also go slowly. I have had no problems and I am really impressed.

I too bought this to cut some foam from a Pelican case. I too, didn't want to spend alot of money on a decent foam cutter, when taking into consideration that I was only going to use it once or twice...that's until I had the privilege to use this sweet peace of Chinese made machinery.To me, my time is worth something, and for the amount of time and frustration I spent cursing this thing up one side and down the other, I felt like I had already made up the difference in cost of this piece of junk and the one I eventually ended up getting after I returned this (Proxxon 37080 Hot Wire Cutter).After using the Proxxon 37080, it's even more obvious the Uchida is a piece of junk. Everything about it oozes cheapness. They supply you with three precut wires all with metal eyelets attached to each end. As some have stated these wires range from too long to too short. You will have to McGyver them to make them somewhat work; as I had to bend one of the eylets so I could run some of the excess wire under and then crimp down again so as to make the wire taunt when installing on the cutter. If the wire is not taunt you will not get a straight line when cutting.Others have also mentioned that the wire gets caught and melted into the cheap plastic base within mins of turning it on. I also experienced this, and went through the hassel of Dremeling a notch in the plastic base to help elevate this, but it still got caught and stuck when the wire touched the base.Needless to say, all three wires broke within cutting one case out, and I ended up using some old guitar string I had laying around so I could continue to use this piece of crap. This worked for an hour or so, until the unit just quit working all together.Save yourself some time and a whole heck of alot of frustration, and just buy the aforementioned Proxxon unit. Yeah it's $60 more, but at least it works, and you will be able to use again if need be.

This is a great, low cost foam cutter. It heats up and cools down very quickly. I bought this to cut foam for firearms, and it worked great. If you push the foam too quickly, you'll bend the wire and your cuts will be a little unpredictable. Just take your time and you'll get nice, straight cuts.