Slice And Pluck

Customizing Hard Case Foam Inserts

- John Teator

Yes, they are impressive to look at, aren’t they? They often conjure up thoughts of secret agents and scenes from your favorite action movie. We’re talking about well appointed hard cases complete with a selection of equipment encased in a bath of polyethylene foam.

Most every gun enthusiast has seen a decked out hard case with a perfectly cut foam insert filled to the brim with cool weaponry and accessories. Some say this type of setup isn’t necessary or practical while others say that it offers great protective properties. Regardless, we can probably all agree that a fully set up hard case does look stunning. We decided to tackle the challenge to see how it’s done and how difficult (or easy) it is to do.

We’ll preface this DIY by saying that we have never attempted this type of project before, so the results you see here are real, unedited and (spoiler alert) not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. What we did find out while taking on this job is that it isn’t difficult, but it does demand patience and attention to detail. That said, our first job was to figure out what tool we wanted to use to cut the foam. After testing multiple tools, we decided for our purposes that an electric carving knife, like one that you’d carve a turkey with, was the right tool for the job. For more about our cutting tools trial, take a look at the sidebar, The Right Tool.

The Right Tool

The first thing we did before starting this project was to do plenty of research online and by asking those who have done a job like this before. We heard plenty of suggestions on which tools to use to cut hard case foam inserts. We decided that we’d try the top four suggestions for ourselves and the following is what we observed.

1. CHICAGO PNEUMATIC HEAVY DUTY HOT KNIFE