For old-timers, I think. Back in the old recurve days; when many of us fletched our own arrows and hardly anyone ever heard of vanes and feathers were in.

We had a hot wire that we bent in the shape we wished our feathers to be shaped in then plugged it into a standard household outlet; the wire glowed red and we rotated the fletched arrow and the hot wire trimmed the feathers to the appropriate shape.

I need to make a hot knife but not to trim fletching but to cut 200 feet of new nylon cord for my tent. Are there any experts out there that can tell me how to make one without spending a fortune; I' m retired. [&:]