Making my own foamboard

Piotrsko

Master member
Congratulations, you are doing extremely well. Nice, stable, straight take off roll. One would Never know it was not a kit. Looks better than anything I ever built.
 

cdfigueredo

Elite member
Congratulations, you are doing extremely well. Nice, stable, straight take off roll. One would Never know it was not a kit. Looks better than anything I ever built.
Thank you very much for the comment. :giggle::giggle::giggle::giggle:
I'm really happy with the result. It's a beautiful plane and it flies very well. It is the result of a lot of effort to find the right materials easy to acquire here where i live. I hope to start a new way for many like me.
 

Maxx

Active 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I'm flabbergasted ! I knew that the cuban people are very clever people that can make a lot with not much , now I see the proof . Much respect amigo !
 

cdfigueredo

Elite member
I'm flabbergasted ! I knew that the cuban people are very clever people that can make a lot with not much , now I see the proof . Much respect amigo !
Thank you very much for your kind words, Maxx. There's a phrase that says
The lack of bread sharpens the intellect.
I think this is the result of loving this hobby so much. The idea is never to give up, you have to keep looking for solutions with what you have at hand. ;)
 

MakeHow

New 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 arSe
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. ;)
i really like this idea. I’ve always been looking for ways to get foam board in the country I live. Thank you so much
 

Apis

Member
I want to make a foam board to use for a spar and wing rib build. Depaper DTFB and then glue on something tougher like craft paper with a hardening agent. I want something that is not much heavier but much much stronger. I then want to skin the wing in either Dollar Tree plastic wrap, as a monocote alternative.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what to use?

Thank you very much for the suggestions.
 

Matthewdupreez

Legendary member
i used a brown kraft paper on my foam board.
it was really strong when made into my spar, and it was also easy to work with.
if u have any more questions ill try to help you.
i used a piece of foam from an old refigeration unit it works like a charm
 

Matthewdupreez

Legendary member
how about glueing a thin plastic onto the foam instead of paper to make water proof foam board...... I'm going to try it and ill let y'all know how it comes out