Making my own foamboard

cdfigueredo

Elite member
Foamboard is the soul of FliteTest, but what if you just don't have access to an foamboard source, or it's just too expensive?
Running several tests I discovered how to make my own foamboard easy and cheap. :cool::cool::cool:
This tutorial is aimed at those who like me do not have access to this important material and even so, we want to see our FT style plans fly. And to all those who are curious soul.

See the full article here
 
Last edited:

cdfigueredo

Elite member
This is the result obtained. Unfortunately I don't have a scale at my disposal so I haven't been able to make weight comparisons between the samples obtained and other foamboards, but maybe some of you can. The rough texture is due to the fact that in this test the foam was not sanded after cutting it with hot wire.
comparison.jpg

The hardness and rigidity of the samples is excellent. Basic cuts and bends work perfectly too even in more complex folds.
muestra1.jpg muestra2.jpg
 
Last edited:

cdfigueredo

Elite member
Foamboard usually consists of three layers, an inner layer of polystyrene or polyurethane foam that is clad with an outer facing on each side of either a white clay coated paper, cotton archival paper or common brown Kraft paper. So, the core of our own foamboard must be some kind of foam and we'll need some paper to cover both sides. And of course, we'll need glue to put it all together.
 

cdfigueredo

Elite member
The first thing to do is to get a foam sheet of the desired size. The advantage of this method is that we can define the thickness of our foamboard as we want. Foam is usually available in blocks much thicker than 5mm, so we will need to make thin sheets for our foamboard. For this I use my hot wire cutter, so I get sheets of the desired thickness. With a little practice and patience you get almost perfect results. As I have been able to appreciate, to obtain a 5mm thickness foamboard, it is necessary a core of foam of 4mm. The two layers of paper and glue add up to approximately 1mm. After passing the hot wire, it is advisable to sand with fine sandpaper to achieve a smoother surface. This step is optional but greatly improves the final result.
piece.jpg

Once the foam core is ready, we mark it on the paper we will use to cover it, letting at least 1cm extra. In my case I used for tests, sheets of office paper, so I have a size limitation. But you can make pieces as big as the paper you can get. We will remember to make 2 layers of paper one for each side.
paper.jpg

Let's get started
Making homemade foamboard is not difficult, from this point one could think of using aerosol glue to attach the paper to the foam core. Excellent, if you thought about it, you have discovered one of the ways to do it. But what if where you live you don't have access to aerosol glue as hard as it may seem? There are other solutions for this.
One solution is to use white glue mixed with water 50-50%. But we can also use much cheaper and more affordable materials to make homemade glue. The glue I used in my experiments is made with water and wheat flour. Yes, wheatpaste is cheap, simple and super strong. I could do a whole wheatpaste tutorial, but I have found this excellent instructable that perfectly describes the process. Just to make it clear that in my experiments i didn't use any additive and instead of cooking the mixture directly in a pan I preferred to do it in a bain-marie mixing constantly until obtaining a watery consistency.
1.jpg 2.jpg 3.jpg

Step 1
Laying the foam sheet on a flat and protected surface, apply the glue all over the surface using a medium brush. Then remove the excess glue using an old credit card.
glue.jpg

Step 2
Take one of the layers of paper, sprinkle it with water and put it on the foam sheet. With care to not tear the paper, remove all bubbles and wrinkles using the credit card once more time. If necessary, pin the bubbles to let the air out more easily.
mojar.jpg poner.jpg aplanar.jpg

Step 3
Once the paper is completely fixed, apply a new layer of glue using the brush and removing the excess with the credit card trying to leave a flat surface.
segunda.jpg

Step 4
Have finished with one side, then turn and repeat the process for the other side of the sheet.

Step 5
When finished, will hang it and let it dry in a ventilated place but avoiding the direct sun light. The direct sun would produce a differentiated drying of the layers and could produce some deformations.
hang.jpg
 
Last edited:

cdfigueredo

Elite member
Sometimes it is necessary to remove the inner layers of the foamboard, so why not make your own foamboard with a single layer of paper? The answer is NO! While the glue dries, the fibers of the paper tend to shrink, which causes twists in the foam sheet. The result is a twisted and unusable foamboard. Like this piece with only one layer of paper on the bottom after drying under the sun.
doblada.jpg bnd.jpg

Instead this one perfectly flat with one layer of paper on each side
flat.jpg

To obtain foamboard of different thicknesses you only need to get thinner sheets of foam. In this way you can obtain foamboard sheets up to 2mm thick.
mano.jpg
 

cdfigueredo

Elite member
Nice job and tutorial.


I have used regular newspaper as a covering actually works very well and that is free. It stiffens the foam and by using Elmer`s wood glue makes it water proof.

For even more information here is a link.

https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?1552848-Newspaper-glue-covering-improvement

Thank you very much for the link. I was really testing the technique to line my latest model and the idea jumped into my mind.
I hope someone else will try it and make it useful to you. At least for me this would be the way to build my own FT models.

Unfortunately where I live I don't have access to many types of glue. Only white glue, hot glue and cyanoacrylate. But surely there are many more ways to do it. I hope that some of you with the resources at your disposal can achieve a better result. ;)
 
M

MCNC

Guest
Fascinating, even though foamboard is plentiful and cheap in my area, I am drawn to try this.
 

cdfigueredo

Elite member
More successful experiments. :cool:
I decided to do several more tests. For this new experiment cut two pieces of 1,2 and 3 mm foam. And then I made two variants of foamboard, one side and both sides paper cover. To the left the one-sided and to the right the two-sided.
1.jpg 2.jpg

Almost 1mm foamboard
1mm.jpg 1mm1.jpg

Almost 2mm foamboard
2mm.jpg 2mm1.jpg

Almost 3mm foamboard
3mm.jpg 3mm1.jpg

The same conclusions, single sided foamboard tends to bend. On the other hand, the two-sided foamboard is perfect and the resistance increases considerably, even for the 1mm thick variant.
 
Last edited:

cdfigueredo

Elite member
I started using this new "wheatboard" (thanks to winglet for the name :D) to build my FT models. As I said, I have decided to start with the FT Simple Scout. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of making the foam sheets 5mm thick, so it will be thicker than the foamboard you normally use. The sheets should have been 4mm and then when adding the layers of paper, reach the appropriate final thickness.

In spite of everything, the result is really gratifying. See it for yourselves. :giggle:
1.jpg 2.jpg 3.jpg 4.jpg