Making a Board for Motley Crews

Day Three - Foam Cutting

I’ve been saving this foam for years. Making a chess board for Molly Crew!

Set my guide to be just a little wider than the base—20mm, almost an inch. The space between the guide and wire is 1.25 inches.

How Much Can You Do in an Hour?

Today we’re going to see how much hobbying we can get done in an hour (really probably 45 minutes).

Sometimes I would have said “I’ve got an hour, why even bother?” That’s crazy because you can get a lot done in an hour—even 20 minutes!

Hot Wire Tips

Working in the laundry room with windows open because it’s smoking. Go faster so the wire doesn’t snap—if it snaps, I’ll be devastated.

The different foam layers create natural height variation. Some are 4 layers, some are 5. I’ll keep some as-is and shave slivers off others to create subtle differences.

The Glue Decision

Switched from hot glue to Elmer’s glue. Didn’t water it down because watered-down glue might soak into the open-cell foam—if it’s sucking, it’s not sticking.

One Hour Later

Look what we got done! Not finished, but achieved the checkerboard effect—not from colors, but from height differences.

This foam will warp getting wet, so putting something heavy on top and along the sides. Thanks for watching!

Transcript

What’s up, guys? Day three. I’ve been saving this foam for years. A chess board for Molly Crew. What’s up?

What’s up? Uh, I set my guide to just be a little bit wider than this base. So, the base 20 mm, almost an inch. Uh, I put the space between this janky guide and the wire to be 1 and a/4 in. And I’m going to push this up against here.

But I’m also going to be very careful that I don’t knock the guide out of place. And today we’re going to see just how much hobbying we can get done in an hour. And really by an hour, I mean probably 45 minutes. Oh, it’s smoking. Got to go faster than that.

Uh because I only have an hour today and you know like sometimes I just would have been like I got an hour like why even bother and that’s crazy because I can get a lot done in an hour. You can get a lot done in 20 minutes and I’m in my laundry room right now because I can open up all the windows. So, it’s cool that it’s smoking like that. Just to let it cool down so my wire doesn’t snap cuz if my wire snaps, I will be devastated. So, some of these I’ll just keep like like how they are cuz I think like see like this is this is four layers of whatever this material is and this one’s five.

So, these are like already kind of like what I’m going for. And actually, I want it. I don’t want it. I don’t know if I want it that big of a difference, but we’ll we’ll keep some of them. We’ll keep two of each how they are.

And then now this, we’re just going to like shave a sliver off, right? And we’ll see what it gets us. So, this is right now at this level. So, I’m cutting off a little less than the full layer. And with the wire cutter, if you’ve never used one like this before, uh you just go fast cuz if you linger, it’ll stick and get gummed up.

So now if we lay these on the side, you can see like these are pretty pretty big differences in size cuz I don’t need my ruler. I just realized. And we’ll adjust the guide. And this guide sucks too. So like that’s why I use a ruler.

Okay, cool. So, I’m holding the guy in place with this hand. Oh, I got a bunch of [ __ ] on there, and that’ll kind of clean it off. And I’m just making sure I’ve got my head directly over top of these fumes so I can breathe it all in. Um, I’m joking.

I’m in full PPE. I have a full respirator mask on. Um, and I’m I’m not actually talking live. I’m doing the voice over. Definitely.

Uh, no. I really should turn that off. Okay. Okay. So, we’re just going to space these out.

Of course, I had a bunch of junk that came in. So, see, you can kind of already see the effect. So, there’s five. That’s six. These are crap.

Let’s not get these involved. Okay, guys. We’re back. And I said hot glue gun, but I’m actually going to use Elmer’s glue glue. Uh, and the reason I’m going to use this is because it’ll be better.

I’m shaking it. I’m shaking it. Try spin on it. And I’m going to put glue on this, too. And again, I didn’t water this down because I think if it gets too watered down, it’s probably going to soak up into those cells.

All right, guys. We’re in the last row. We’re coming down to the wire on our time limit as well. So, uh, one thing I wanted to talk about again before I finish this up is I realized or I mean I always knew I didn’t just realize that this is open cellled foam. So, it is going to essentially be a sponge and suck up all this glue and if it’s sucking it’s not sticking, you know.

So, this is just going to be like the preliminary glue to and I’m putting a ton on. That’s also why I didn’t water it down earlier. I glued up the side. But hey, an hour and look, we’re like done, you know? Uh, no, we’re not done at all.

But it looks good, you know? I’m already really happy with how it looks without any paint on it. Like, we’ve we’ve achieved the checkerboard. effect, not from different colors because I kind of I mean I’m definitely going to put some different colors on it, but I didn’t want it to be like a checkerboard. But now we have we have it like I’m just squishing everything together.

And now I’m going to put something heavy on top of this because this foam will warp getting wet. So I don’t want it to bulge. So, I’m going to put something like heavy along the sides in the back and then something heavy on top. But, uh, but that’s my hour and look what we got done. Thanks for watching.

Appreciate you. Have a good one.