Newbie based in AUS trying to find foam board

[gerbs1204]

Hi All, new to the whole idea of scratch building anything but am keen to give it a crack! Looking at starting off with the FT Tiny Trainer and think i have most components sorted except... the Foam Board!
Being in Aus I cant justify the freight to get any from the US and cannot seem to find anything suitable locally or online. I have read a few threads where Aussies are buying bulk but I just want to get enough to get me started and then I can look at bulk buying if I get the bug for it!
Any suggestions would be muchly appreciated.
Thanks

 

[RichardBH]

Hi, I'm in Aus as well, (Brisbane), I'm pretty new to this and have just finished my second plane. I started with paper covered foam board from Riot art and craft, (when it was half price), but quickly found out that it is heavy, and difficult to take the paper off. I ended up removing all the paper from my parts rubbing it with water and then using tape for the joints. I no longer bother with leaving the paper on A and B joints. Just cut straight through and tape with packing tape and glue with liquid nails.

I now use a depron style of board. It has no paper and is about the same weight per area as DTFB. I buy it from Hobby Rama in Brisbane and use the 3mm and 5mm sheets. https://www.hobbyrama.com.au/foam-core-board-natural-5mm These sheets are double the size of DTFB so it works out about $7 an equivalent sheet. ($15 for foam on an aircraft is still pretty reasonable to me.)

I build the FT models but use the style that is more like Andrew Newtons style here:

I now use this for all my builds, as I don't have to struggle to remove the paper, the paper doesn't come off on its own, and its just easy to work with. For joints you just have to cut all the way through where FT normally has you cutting to the paper and cover with packing tape.

Check out Hai-Lee here at flitetest, he has posted about board in Aus. https://forum.flitetest.com/index.php?threads/foam-board-suggestions.63406/ and he has some suggestions about removing paper with an iron. He using this mob: http://www.larsonjuhl.com.au/category/1206-foamboard-backings

Andrew Newton has some interesting materials in his list as well. http://newtonairlines.blogspot.com/2015/03/materials-and-links.html

Cheers, Richard.

 

[Merv]

Welcome to the forums.

In the US, fb is cheap and widely available, depron is expensive & very hard to find. If FT were in Aus, I’m sure they would use depron.

Good old fashion corrugated cardboard will make a good flying plane. A depron or fb plane will have a better finish but the cardboard plane will fly just as well.

 

[TheFlyingBrit]

Welcome
The guys in New Zealand have the same issue I believe and use Depron or Corflute.
Bruce on XJet and Andrew Newton both build some decent planes without foam board. I can't get the Flite Test board (cheaply), so I buy an equivelant version off Ebay, it works okay.

 

[TheFlyingBrit]

There is a site, SPAD to the bone which has plans for corflute planes and builds, worth checking out.
https://www.spadtothebone.org/plans.html

 

[TheFlyingBrit]

This would be a good project an Ultra Stik

 

[TheFlyingBrit]

Build file attached.