DIY Hot Knife Gun

I needed a hot knife to cut some polypro webbing. Looked on Ebay, couldn’t find anything for a good price. The target was VERY LOW!!

SO, yep … I made my own!

I went to Harbor Freight and grabbed a 200W soldering gun, for about $13.

I had some 1/8″ brass rod laying around. Where the soldering tip would go, I used a 1/8″ drill to drill out the contacts. So the brass rod would fit inside them. The OEM tip was much smaller then 1/8″.

Bent the brass rod into a basic U shape, to get the width I wanted for the cut.

Then bent the legs back to match the opening of the soldering gun.

Here was the tricky part! I smashed it flat on a vise with a hammer. But it didn’t work. The brass fell apart. So I made a new one. This time I put the cutter in the gun, pulled the trigger, heated up the brass. Then smashed it flat. IT WORKED!

This thing works GREAT!! I cut on a piece of glass to keep from melting the table.