Coroplast better than Foamboard?

Gaz.Spencer

Junior Member
I've been building my own planes for roughly a year and a bit, and in that time I've used both Coroplast and Foamboard, and I have to say, I love Coroplast.

I seem to encounter issues with Foamboard, such as warping, and water damage when landing on wet grass, and yes, these issues can be fixed, but it is so much extra work. All these issues are fixed with Coroplast, as it is made of plastic. However it is substantially heavier.

I just want to know your opinions on Coroplast, and whether you guys use it to build your planes.

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degriz

Active member
I have built a few out of 2mm coro, It is a bit more difficult to work with but you end up with a much more durable aircraft. Some of the crashes would of totaled a foam build.

Most of my flying is done in the early morning, the foamboard does not handle the wet grass so I take the coro aircraft out.

Transportation takes a beating on the foam, and it starts to look ratty, but not on the coro.

It is heavier & a little more work but I think it's well worth the effort.

There are other posts on coroplast if you search a little.


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Gaz.Spencer

Junior Member
As I am in New Zealand, getting Foamboard is very difficult, so that is the main reason I use Coroplast. It's much cheaper, and much easier to find.
 

MrClean

Well-known member
I like using it Flipper.JPG Flipper_small.jpg
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The wing is my Flipper, the Stick is an Ultra Spad Stick, nicknamed BigPlane.

The little one I've doplered at 135 the big one spins a 22 inch prop with one of those "Cheap" Turnigy 52 cc gas motors. Flew that thing all weekend solid once on a gallon of 2 stroke gas. Can't fly that much glow for 5 bucks I tell ya.

Yes, the picture with me standing behind BigPlane does show a rather leaning landing gear. That's because the flight before that while flying inverted I ran out of gas. Dove for speed and leveled out for a nice landing at the far end of the field and instead landed into the back of a parked semi trailer 100 yards farther down. Silly depth perception. Bent the gear, loosened a wing mounting block. Fixed it at the field and finally bent the gear back straight this spring. It was funky looking but more importantly I had to NAIL landings or the lowered clearence would clip the prop. Dang props cost more then all the coroplast on the plane.

Big plane won't hover but if you have 5 mph of headwind it will climb in that attitude till you can't see it. I get about 41 spins before I have to recover. The Flipper will climb, straight up, out of sight, fast.

Team Monkey is on this site. He builds primarily with electric power though he has the speed trophy for the last two contests at SPADfest besting my Flipper (top speeds those times were logged as 121 or 122) His electric speed plane this year had a little too much torque from the motor on launch. But most of his planes are really good performers, even the speed plane, once calmed a bit was flying really well BUT it floated a little too long. Hopefully he'll come along and post pictures of his ships.
 
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MrClean

Well-known member
I also forgot to mention, on another website, RCGroups there is a thread entitiled "Beyond Yardsticks...." or something like that and the major poster is Extreme Sports. Well that guy is a regular picaso with coroplast. Look at his planes, there's pages and pages of thread with dozens of planes, some scalies that look like the real thing in electric and IC. Most of us are not this kind of modeler. I like to build, but I like to fly more so I'm more form over function and if it just happens to look good well, whoopie!! This guy, wowsers.