Quick Tip: Hotwiring a Hot-Wire cutter!

In a minor diversion from the norm, I thought I'd post something showing a quick 5 minute hack I made a short while ago.

As you may be aware if you look in on my blog I've been working on building a modular-tile system for a wargames table.

I have a small attention span, so as always I get distracted. Despite not having finished all the tiles yet, I've already started building some scenic pieces to add dimension to the table surface.

Inevitably, this has lead to building some hills.

The hills themselves I'll cover in another post - this one is all about the hot-wire cutter I used in the process.

When I got my cutter out of storage (it hadn't been used in a while) I was irritated to find that the battery had gone flat.

My hot-wire cutter may differ from yours - it#s basically a handle with a twisted pair of cables which end in spade connectors:

...in order to attach to the terminals of a 4.5v battery:

Now I honestly have no recollection of the thought-process that led to this, but I ended up devising (probably via wondering if I could buy a PSU of some sort) a means of safely mains-powering the cutter using an old USB cable and a discarded phone charger.

It goes like this. The hot-wire cutter requires a 4.5 battery. USB runs at 5v. "Near enough for Jazz" as the saying goes. Cut the Micro-USB end off the USB cable and strip off the outer insulation. You'll find four very thin wires inside. You're interested in the red and the black only. You can ignore/chop off the others.

All I did was solder the red and black wires to the spade connectors, wrap a bit of tape around them in order that the spades can't touch each other and - JOB DONE! You can see in the photo below where the red wires from the h-w cutter join the green USB cable, wrapped up in a bit of masking tape.

It works like a dream. Not only do I never have to worry about flat batteries again, the spade connectors weren't that reliable anyway and my cable is now 1m longer to boot.

RESULT!

More "quick tips":

Wargames Wasteland HQ (Part 4 - Table frames complete)

A big step - we have completed building the frames that will support our games table.

All four frames have been bolted together. The intention has always been that this should be built such that it could be dismantled and moved should I ever need to do so. The last thing I want to do is to put something together that I'd need to trash the shed to move!

It's not perfect - there are slight differences in levels here and there so some planing and sanding will be required to smooth it all out. But it's solid - there's no give or wobble.

More Workshop stuff:

Wargames Wasteland HQ (Part 5 - Table complete!)

This is a proper moment for me. For the first time in my hobby life, I have a dedicated set-up for Wargaming. My shed is shelved (considerable tidy-up required!) and I have completed work (with able assistance from my son, Noah) on a 6' x 4' gaming table, with under-table storage space.

The lower shelves went in a couple of days ago:

And the surface went on yesterday:

The idea is that I can use this large, flat expanse as a worktop for larger projects that need some space. The first such project will be the construction of modular tiles to form the actual gaming surface.

I'm an  obsessor. When I get an idea, it mills around in my head until I've planned it to the nth degree. Then I normally botch the actual build-phase (this one is still going OK - no surprises so far). Whilst plotting this scheme, I came up with a way of constructing the entire table surface, shelves and fourteen 2' x 2' double-sided tiles out of five 8' x 4' sheets of 9mm MDF.

Stay tuned for details of how I did it and how it's going.

More Wargames Table stuff:

Wargames Wasteland HQ (Part 3)

Another frame down! One more to go.

Once we get the fourth frame built, we can bolt them togther in order to square everything up and then it's off to the DIY Store to grab the MDF to make the shelves, tabletops and modular tiles.

This is getting real now!

Woohoo!

I'm hoping to get him involved in actually playing the games too!

More Workshop stuff:

Wargames Wasteland HQ (Part 1)

I'm FINALLY getting around to setting up a dedicated Wargames space! It's an exciting project for me.

A couple of years ago I purchased an 8' x 12'' shed with the specific intention of setting up a haven at home where I could work, play and store my stuff. My long-suffering wife has put up with boxes of my junk for long enough and sanctioned the spend - she's amazing, by the way.

So, the shed was deployed in it's LZ and I set to work sorting it out. I lined the walls and ceiling with insulating foam, covered the foam with hardboard sheets and put up a couple of shelves. I put down some old carpet that had been removed from a room we redecorated, then all hell broke loose at home due to a close relative falling ill. My shed became a bit of a dumping ground, was filled with non-"me" stuff and that's how it has sat for the last two years.

A couple of weeks back I got back into it - I finished building the shelves I'd started and had a bit of a sort-out, unboxing a lot of stuff and putting it on said shelves to make some floor-space re-appear.

This weekend - with some invaluable help from my 11-year-old son - I have started work on constructing a games table. Now, I'm no carpenter. My building skills start to fail in direct proportion to the size of the object I'm building. Give me a broken Land Raider, an X-Acto and some plasticard and I'll fix it up just fine. Give me a couple of meters of pine, a hand-saw and some screws and I'll see you when I get out of hospital. You'll no doubt notice that the hardboard lining on my shed is less than precise.

So, my plan is to construct a 6' x 4' gaming surface. To support it I am building four 3' x 2' frames. These will double as a storage space with a shelf being beneath the table. Why four frames? Two reasons:

1. I may want to be able to move this thing at some point and having four smaller frames will make that easier.
2. I want a solid center to the table and the center of this will be where the four corners of the four frames all meet so should be pretty solid and able to bear some weight, which the shelf underneath will need to do.

Here's the completed first frame with the aforementioned 11-year-old. No tabletop or shelf in place yet:

The miniature of whom I am most proud: My son, Noah

I've got some great ideas for home-made double-sided modular gaming tiles - more on that in a few weeks when I've finished building the other three frames and got the shelf and playing surface in place.

More Workshop stuff:

Wargames Wasteland HQ (Part 2)

Work continues on my wargames table project.

The second of the four supporting frames has been completed and work on the third is underway.

I'm getting excited now at the fact that this is becoming a reality and that I'll soon be able to start making the tiles and some scenery pieces!

More news as it comes in.

My apprentice Wargames Table Builder, Noah

More Workshop stuff: