I have been cutting approximately 9" long pieces of polystyrene for my model railway. I can get an uneven surface on one side, to represent a rock face, using a cheap hand held cutter. To get a flat rear surface required the careful use of a knife, but that does not give a totally flat surface. Using this machine, I can get a near perfect rear surface and, holding the polystyrene block in my hand, I can get the uneven surface on the front. Very happy with the machine, although I have not used it on any other type of foam material yet and have not tried the 'extras' that come with the machine. One thing I will say, when switching on, make sure the control knob is turned down - when I switched the machine on for the first time, output was up near maximum and the cutting wire was glowing red!