CNC Needle Cutter for Depron Foam Board RC Airplanes 

Glad it was helpful!

Thanks, Barry your builds are amazing. Will be making a jetworks design soon. Which one though so many great planes to choose from.😀

Thanks. You made a good choice software is always the biggest challenge.

You're welcome!

Hi Edward thanks you were the inspiration for it. Working on some new park jets for next year. Keith

Hi John, thanks. I think a few guys have done that. I don't use my router very much so it's not an issue for me. I tend to use 3d printing for most things now. Glad you enjoyed the video I have a few more park jets planned this year an F18 and F35 as well, using old RCPowers plans that you can still get.

@@rckeith I built and flew 3Dlabprint's bf109 with lG. It needed speed. I also 3dprinted wings for a 48 inch wingspan Timber, which were quite stiff and lighter than the foam by a we bit. Where I went wrong was not having sufficient stiffness in the connection of the wings to the fuselage such that aileron authority was very weak due to wing deflecting under load of ailerons. I'm working up an r/c version of a SwitchBlade 300 full size which means reverse engineering a lot of it,but also discovering how to control a tandem wing plane. This is why i want do foam. I expect to wreck a lot of planes before I get sharp on this. the "mules" will be foam and I;ll set up the foam so I can cut all the parts at once. I am going to 3d print leading and trailing edges cause it's easy and should give the wings a closer approximation of a real airfoil than the flat plate I'd have without them. i see I can't attach anything here, but if there's a way, let me know and I'll show you what I'm doing. Modification to my 6040 mill for the needle driver is designed and will be built of aluminum parts. john

Hi Christopher, that sound really interesting. I started out as a motor mechanic many years ago so glow plugs are not new to me. Would be great to see some pictures or videos. Keith

I think the depth of the cut is 9mm in this setup. Maybe if the distance was increased between the motor and tip and using a bigger flywheel it would have less bend on the wire and may not break.😀

Hi David, I don't think a drag knife would work on balsa it would tend to rip it. It really depends on how thick the balsa wood is but I suspect you are thinking of something like wing ribs. A laser diode attachment would probably work OK as long as it was powerful enough. The simplest is probably a small end mill, but it does create a lot of dust. I've never used a laser so please bear that in mind but I have cut with end mills. So I would go with that first and if you find the dust a problem then maybe a laser. But you have to be careful with fumes. Hope that helps

@@rckeith Thank you very much Keith for your time in answering my question. I look forward to your next video.

@@davesdigitaldomain if you have the money there are a bunch of these 400.00 laser cutters on the market. Search RU-vid and find someone with a good review and try to get the one they are using. They will cut through balsa like butter. A diode laser can do it, but you are going to have to make a lot of passes and you will have to adjust the focus to make each cut a little deeper. The laser cutters I'm talking about are CO2 lasers and they use 40w tubes. The TUBE makes all the difference in the world. Don't get a diode laser head. The tube lasers mount the laser in the box and the cutting part is a mirror that moves around. The diode laser heads are glorified laser pointers. They can be VERY powerful, but nothing like the CO2 laser. And they will cut balsa in one pass.

I don't think it would work very well. It would be difficult to control the pin heat and you would melt too much. I would use my hot wire cnc foam cutter if I wanted to cut with heat. The needle works very well and is worth the effort to make it. Thanks for your comments 🙂

@@rckeith I see what you're saying about controlling and stabilising the pin heat, yes that would be an issue, I didn't think about that. I'm in the process of building my cnc router and will look at using this needle cutter. Thanks for great videos I look forward to the next one.

@@fcolon1976 it will cut foam board/depron 6mm or 1/4" thick

@@rckeith oh ok that's great. Got to start building me one 🙂

I only use depron foam so I can't say if it would be suitable.

​@@rckeithUnderstood, thank you

@@rckeith Tell me, please, what kind of file do you use?

@@xander_fP I use a DXF file

​@@rckeithThat's not what I asked. What kind of string or saw do you use?