Making my own foamboard

[Matthewdupreez]

Ha! The only reward I want is a new easy to match water/impact resistant building material. But I had to give it a name. Ace board was just too sweet of an name!!!

agreed.

 

[Mukumd]

Excellent idea thanks

 

[Matthewdupreez]

Excellent idea thanks

yea I make all my planes from homemade foam board...... note build a really simple plane first because you probably will want to rebuild it... believe me first plane from homemade foam board === horrible look.... but now I am currently building a ms spitfire and it is soooo smooth and slick/sweet

 

[Matthewdupreez]

@dh04000 @cdfigueredo
aceboard update.
acetate 0.1 mm sanded lightly with 100 grit sandpaper.. glued on with wheatglue.
approx drying time 4 days at 89 %humidity (raining outside)
lighter and stronger than paper coated foam.. i covered only on side.. because the water won't shouldn't get in the plane

 

[AussieBison]

This can absolutely help a lot of people in Australia. We don't get DTFB here (and we don't have any dollar store chains). KMart and some other local places sell 20" x 30" at 5$ per sheet, and those are usually too heavy for rc planes. Other places and online stores do sell foamboards, but prices can easily go up to 10$ per sheet (and even 18-20$ at some places) - which makes scratch building for new pilots (who are very likely to crash) very less viable!

I have tried following the steps from FT article. I am using 50mm xps sheet (we get here at Bunning - Aussie version of lowes / home depot), and it's gone well so far.. time to cover the sheets with paper using 50-50 glue-water now.

Thanks a lot @cdfigueredo, great job!

 

[cdfigueredo]

This can absolutely help a lot of people in Australia. We don't get DTFB here (and we don't have any dollar store chains). KMart and some other local places sell 20" x 30" at 5$ per sheet, and those are usually too heavy for rc planes. Other places and online stores do sell foamboards, but prices can easily go up to 10$ per sheet (and even 18-20$ at some places) - which makes scratch building for new pilots (who are very likely to crash) very less viable!

I have tried following the steps from FT article. I am using 50mm xps sheet (we get here at Bunning - Aussie version of lowes / home depot), and it's gone well so far.. time to cover the sheets with paper using 50-50 glue-water now.

Thanks a lot @cdfigueredo, great job!

I'm glad you found the article useful! I hope it helps you to build many airplanes! I bet there is less stuff in short supply in Australia than in Cuba hahahaha.

 

[AussieBison]

I'm glad you found the article useful! I hope it helps you to build many airplanes! I bet there is less stuff in short supply in Australia than in Cuba hahahaha.

haha, not really sure... but I do envy our fellow hobbyists in north america for having this luxury of dollar stores and foamboards

 

[Matthewdupreez]

yea.... but so far i've built 20 planes using this foam method and man it works great... something i've noticed though is that if you make your own flour glue, put it in a sealed jar and let it stand for 2 days.... it will smell a bit while wet, but once dry it will be much stronger, and it won't smell

 

[AussieBison]

yea.... but so far i've built 20 planes using this foam method and man it works great... something i've noticed though is that if you make your own flour glue, put it in a sealed jar and let it stand for 2 days.... it will smell a bit while wet, but once dry it will be much stronger, and it won't smell

That's awesome you have had a great success! I got a white PVA glue, and it hasn't done a great job on the XPS foam.. but I am almost certain it's the type of foam to blame. XPS has very rough surface, it's this one:

What type of foam do you use?

 

[Matthewdupreez]

That's awesome you have had a great success! I got a white PVA glue, and it hasn't done a great job on the XPS foam.. but I am almost certain it's the type of foam to blame. XPS has very rough surface, it's this one:

View attachment 205647

What type of foam do you use?

I've used foam exactly like that... I've used low density EPs, medium density eps .... By far the best has been medium density EPs, and medium density xps .... Will post pics a bit later.

 

[AussieBison]

I've used foam exactly like that... I've used low density EPs, medium density eps .... By far the best has been medium density EPs, and medium density xps .... Will post pics a bit later.

Awesome, thanks for the info... pics will definitely help as I don't have a lot of understanding of different foam types.

Also, have you tried making any master series foam using your own fb? how was the result?

 

[Matthewdupreez]

Awesome, thanks for the info... pics will definitely help as I don't have a lot of understanding of different foam types.

Also, have you tried making any master series foam using your own fb? how was the result?

Yes I've made the ms ft corsair, a scaled down ms corsair, and the ms spitfire is half built at the moment.... The homemade fb works great...
Pics will arrive when my dad brings home my laptop... My phone has a terrible camera

 

[cdfigueredo]

That's awesome you have had a great success! I got a white PVA glue, and it hasn't done a great job on the XPS foam.. but I am almost certain it's the type of foam to blame. XPS has very rough surface, it's this one:

View attachment 205647

What type of foam do you use?

I thought it was a picture of the ocean taken from one of those old wardbids from the pacific war hahahaha

 

[Matthewdupreez]

I thought it was a picture of the ocean taken from one of those old wardbids from the pacific war hahahaha

Yea... You know what it actually does look like it😂😂

 

[AussieBison]

I thought it was a picture of the ocean taken from one of those old wardbids from the pacific war hahahaha

hahahahahaha... it looks like that now, it didn't before

 

[AussieBison]

Yes I've made the ms ft corsair, a scaled down ms corsair, and the ms spitfire is half built at the moment.... The homemade fb works great...
Pics will arrive when my dad brings home my laptop... My phone has a terrible camera

Awesome.. That's great you could do pretty much all ft planes with 'custom foam'
Yeah, no rush on the pictures.. just that they will help me look for the right type of foam..

 

[Bo123]

@AussieBison Did you get any luck at all? There's no got FB over here, and I am going to try this method.

 

[quorneng]

Not exactly "making my own foam board" but I have had some success scratch building with XPS laminate flooring underlay.
In the UK it is avialble in 5 mm thick sheets in grey or green. Any store that sells laminate flooring will sell underlay.

As you can see it is quite a dense XPS with a passably smooth surface. As a result is is fairly rigid but snaps readily if bent too far. It does have a slight "grain" effect but nothing like that of original Depron.
It limitations to bending does mean planking can be the only process to achieve a sharp radius but its rigidity allows some structures to need no reinforcing.
This scratch built 1040 mm span Hawker Sea Hawk has a 55 mm EDF with an 1800 mAh 3s.

It uses a 3d printed bifurcated inlet and exhaust duct but the rest of the structure is just 5 mm XPS foam skin over XPS formers with no reinforcing at all, even in the wings.
A rather tricky build but the end result means it is big and light enough to only need modest power, so scale inlets and exhausts, and it flies slowly enough to be an easy hand launch and bellyland on grass.

 

[AussieBison]

@AussieBison Did you get any luck at all? There's no got FB over here, and I am going to try this method.

hey, sorry I’m like 10 days late to respond.. but I gave it a try and it wasn’t too bad. It is not as good as DTFB of course, but definitely worth a try!

 

[arjun21122006]

Hi could you tell what kind of paper are you using since I used paper similar to thickness of paper in art files..
It is currently drying