Got to the point on the sawmill kit I am working on that calls for the cutting of walls and assembly of the power plant. Problem is that the material for the walls is composed of textured brick paper laminated onto a semi rigid foam backing. Instructions call for the wall sections where joined at the corners to have a 45 deg. bevel at each corner. Therein lies the problem. Okay I have at least two tools that will give me angle cuts one being the NWSL Chopper the other the Tru Sander. Problem is that they don't handle materials that are 1 to 1.5 inches high. I also have a sabre saw with a knife blade that can cut that angle but it is not a table mount and I value my fingers too much to even attempt using it without it being table mounted. The strips of material can be easily broken or snapped if too much pressure is put on them. Might be tempted to try a razor saw and miter box because at least the side of the miter box will give the foam support. Any other ideas out there? Photo below of the material sitting on a Chopper.
On styrene sheet I always use a sharp mill ba5tard file and eye-ball a 45° bevel along the edge. Don't know how well it would work on foam.
I have a sanding block. Bevels are manually created by holding the piece, and working it against that block. Practice with some scrap material and then....
I'd make a sanding block of the required size and use self adhesive sanding paper and use that with your True sander base.
Problem is supporting the foam piece while sanding and while my miter box would work and give the support I found it was not tall enough to handle the pieces when I dug it out just now. Every thing else assembles with corner posts and butted edges but this structure. Would have been nice if they would have included a strip of textured paper to glue on the cut ends using butt joints. Trying to eyeball a 45 and free hand it is a bit much to end up with a decent fit and there is not a lot of left over material if I mess up. Currently trying plan B applying Special Oxide Red to the cut ends and letting them dry to see what I have appearance wise. If it has a good match I may just end up going with a butt joint and forgetting about the brick texture carrying to the corners. From about 20 inches from the layout edge it just won't be noticeable if the colors match.
Use a thin, stiff metal sheet (or similar material) on each side of the piece positioned so that, when sanding, it defines the limit of what should be sanded. Clamp it all to gether and then sand against a sanding block. When the edges of both of the pieces of metal touch the sandpaper at the same time you are done. Adrian
A band saw does sound like the thing. We used to cut nomex honey comb on the band saw with good results and it has less structural integrity than the foamboard.
I'm missing something..... Why don't you lay it face down on the surface and bevel it that way? The other thing you can try is to remove the foam wall thickness on one side/edge (but not through to the paper surface backing, just the foam part) and do a lap joint. That's the way I do most of my Strathmore structures that have wood reinforcements. You'll never get a perfect bevel edge through the paper backing anyway. If you think about which edge is most visible you can design the lap joint accordingly, touch it up with a bit of paint on the final exposed paper edge only.
Im confused. Why is it necessary to miter the corners? Can't you just assemble the building first with butt joints and then apply the brick paper? Avoid unnecessary complexities.
The paper is laminated to the foam thus one solid piece. Really poor idea but what I am stuck with as far as the kit components. Also the foam backing which has textured paper on one side and plain paper on the other is so flimsy that the use of a pencil to mark out the cut lines leaves an impression into the material. If you sneeze hard at this stuff it will probably bend and break thus a number of the suggested methods to bevel the edgeswould be difficult just because of this flimsiness. However the Special Oxide Red paint is a very close match if not right on. Butt jointed and from about a foot away you cannot tell anything is amiss. Thus butt joint assembly it will be. Right now wondering if this one time justifies purchasing a micro table saw that allows angle cuts.
A couple of suggestions; 1. Thick straight-edge with a 45° bevel along one edge. lay a signle edge razor on th ebevel and draw it through the material. 2. I believe art supply stores have a tool for cutting a beveled edge in art print matboard. Don't know what the angle is, or if it would cut deep enough though.
If you have a miter saw or miter box you can cut a piece of wood on a 45 degree angle wide enough to support the foam piece. Lay it flat on your NWSL Chopper and cut the bevel.
DA ANSWER!! It's called "The True Sander" and it's made by NWSL. Maybe Micro Mark makes one too, but it's available here: http://www.¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤.com/NWSL-The-True-Sander-p/nwsl-57-4.htm I have one of these and for beveled wood and Styrene joints, it works great! (EDIT) What??? I can't post a link to an online outlet??? What's this BS anyway? Okay...just Google "nwsl true sander" or "nwsl sander" and you'll find 'em easy. Cheerio! Bob Gilmore
Looked at that option and in fact one is shown in the original picture posted with the thread. Keeping it in plumb while beveling was one issue compounded by the materials extreme flexibility and height at one end. However it has been a good exercise in trying to figure out how to handle this material that somebody else will have to face with this or a similar kit that has this material. My solution was the Special Red Oxide paint to cover the with foam ends after cutting. Next was going with a butt joint like all the other bldgs. have. Note in the photo below the small scrap that is bowed and held against the cutting mat by no more than the paint jar, and yes this stuff was that flexible. Great application for a curved brick wall. Looking at the photo that was taken from 12 inches away it is hard to see that the individual brick detail isn't there and further back from the edge which this will be it won't be visible. I can live with it. A little touch up with a fine sanding stick at the joints a touch of paint, and then weathering the metal roof with rust and soot and done. At this juncture I figure that two things would do the job of a beveled cut in this material. The table mounted sabre saw with knife blade or the small micro table saw like made by Dremel that has a deck that can be set or fine toothed blade that can be angled for bevel cuts.
The miter box idea will work, but sandwich the piece between two pieces of narrow wood and cut the whole thing.
