Foam Board in Australia

Knights

Junior Member
Good to know, I was going to use the 3S 850 pack I originally bought for the first one but I might down grade it to a 800 - 850 2S pack and see how the goes. And I have been starting to cut out and old plastic ice cream container into little "eye lit" or "washer" style rings for where the skewers are going to pass through the body and power pod :)
 

Hai-Lee

Old and Bold RC PILOT
Success!

I finally got bored enough to attempt an Explorer build which I had been putting off because the FB I use is almost impossible to peel. Well I should say WAS.

Yesterday I dug out my box of scraps and cut out the fuselage parts and as some of them require the removal of the paper on one side I set about making the process as simple as the posted build video. Whilst not quite as simple because of the setup it was very quick and neat.

The procedure I used was to either leave a paper or tab on the side to be removed or to glue a peice of the paper onto the paper side which is to be removed. Do not use a heat sensitive glue!!!

I then got out my trusty iron and dialed up a moderate temperature, With the paper to be removed in contact with the hot iron under the edge where the tab was and the iron edge providing only a hot edge at that point I pulled the paper down whilst feeding the FB piece horizontally across the hot iron edge.

After I got it started the pulling down of the paper fed the FB piece across the iron edge incredibly fast. All done.

The largest nose piece of the explorer was stripped of the paper where required in about 1 to 2 seconds PERFECTLY!

Another problem I was worried about was the overall weight of an Aussie FB version of the Explorer and the excessive number of posts about the weakness of the original spar design. I had a design for FB spars that Maximise the FB strength without adding other materials but it required long narrow strips of FB and my cutting ability is variable over long lengths.

Yet another SUCCESS! I had purchased a Balsa stripping tool a little while ago to assist in building my Electric version of the S-Tee. Pondering the strip FB problem I noticed my balsa stripper sitting on top of my tool box. So I picked it up. Adjusted it to the required measurement and gave it a shot. PERFECT, SQUARE cut pieces! What a revelation.

Actually there were two revelations. The first was what a great and simple way of doing things and the second was waht a DUMMY I had been by not thinking of it before! Anyway the new spars are progressing well and the fuselage, (made from scrap) is effectively finished .
I might even get this one flying first attempt:rolleyes:
 

Knights

Junior Member
I'll try and get some photos up by the weekend for you, It looks a little rough in places, as I was rushed at times but hopefully it flies alright and looks alright in the air. I weighed it the other day and from memory it weighed in around at 250g ready to fly weight which might still be a little heave but no where near as heavy as my first attempt, so only time will tell if she flies or not.
 

Knights

Junior Member
I have also purchased a couple of 2S 850 battery packs as well to test flight and weight differences between the 3S packs.
 

what_the?!

New member
Anyone looking for Foam Board sheets in Australia I have found this site useful

http://www.foamboards.com.au

and for Depron foam sheets here

http://www.tradewarehouse.com.au/cat...?q=foam+sheets
none of that is Depron.
those sites used images of the planes i built, and i bought some and it was a complete waste of $250 as i bought a box of it because they said it was depron.
it didnt cut well or sand well or bend well and there was no way you could build those planes with it/.
 

DaveM

FPVFC President and CEO
Anyone looking for Foam Board sheets in Australia I have found this site useful

http://www.foamboards.com.au

and for Depron foam sheets here

http://www.tradewarehouse.com.au/cat...?q=foam+sheets
I have used Depron extensively in park jets I've designed and built. Please consider reinforcing Depron with carbon fiber rods of 2 to 3 mm diameter. Depron is very flexible and wing spars, horizontal stabs, vertical fins require reinforcement. A buddy from the helicopter industry taught me that when adding a carbon fiber reinforcement the carbon fiber must be thoroughly glued to the foam. Otherwise, it just separates and doesn't add strength.
 

what_the?!

New member
Hi Dave. You might remember me from the very early days before you started RC super powers and I built a depron f117 which was used in the phoenix RC simulator.

Depron is like hens teeth here in Australia due to it's shipping cost, and companies are passing off foam board as depron.

Depron Australia even had pics of my models on its site that were built from depron, but they were selling foam that wasn't depron.