The construction is obviously pretty simple. I used an eye bolt at the top to be able to adjust the wire tension, an eye screw below, a high E guitar string and my trickle charger set to 12v/2a.
It only took about an hour to construct and get ready. I connected the alligator clamps and fired it up. As expected, the wire got hot and wiggly, so I turned the charger off and adjusted the string tension. Fired it back up and it started to work cutting a few pieces of test foam.
The fly in the ointment was that 12v/2a eventually melted the wire. So I restrung more guitar wire and plugged it in and within a few seconds, the wire had melted. I will move up the the B string which is a little heavier gauge wire. If that does not work, I will have to find a way to reduce the amount of power or find some wire specifically designed to withstand heat.
After lunch, I will try the heavier wire and see how it goes.
update: I dropped the voltage down to 7.5 and that did the trick. For now anyway. I still may want to pick-up some nickel-chromium resistance wire if this is something I want to do beyond these few initial cuts.
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