Testing HobbyKing Foam and glue...

kacknor

Build another!
I received two boxes of HobbyKing foam board this past week. This morning I'd cleaned off my bench for a new 3D EPP kit build and I got to thinking about the new HK stuff and what glue it might use.

This is in no way scientific. Or well planned, thought out, or possibly even effective. But it has good information if not thoroughly tested information.

Quick N Dirty

I razored off a few one inch chunks and grabbed the sticky stuff I had on hand.

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Multi Temp Hot Glue (In a high temp gun), Welder, JB Weld Clear Epoxy, Gorilla Glue and Some Not Safe For Foam CA.

For Comparison, I used a few double layer DTFB scraps. We know Hot Glue works so I skipped it.

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Epoxy on DTFB works fine. Here it is just cured on the surface.

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Welders however, eats DTFB for lunch, it's not even dry at this point and still munching away. I didn't try the CA I had, because well, because. The image above covers both quite well.


HK Board

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Non Foam Safe CA works well. I did a basic butt joint and there was little excess and no deformation around the joint. So I added a good excess amount to the edge and waited. Nothing. My ADD kicked in and I used kicker and a bit of wire to spread it about. Nothing, the foam is still fine. This stuff will work.

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Gorilla Glue. I don't have a lot of experience with Gorilla Glue. It seems very good, just haven't had opportunity to use it much yet. Worked quite well. Just a little box edged with glue and taped till cured. It just did what it does, no interaction with the foam at all save to put it permanently in contact.

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JB Weld Clear Epoxy. No problem. Lap joint with plenty of excess to see what it did around the edges. Just cured upand joined the bits.

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High Temp Hot Glue (Left) and Welders (Right) Certainly wouldn't use either one. The heat melted the foam on contact. The Welders had a second lunch. The hot glue I have on hand is a dual temp, but my Adtech 100 watt gun is not. I could not test low temp glue. Going to get a low temp gun and find out. Hot glue is just too convenient to give up on without checking.

So, using this new lightweight foam board from Hobbyking is going to require using some different glue and techniques than what I've become familiar with. The board is more flexible, so for large stuff skinning will be needed (another post) but for the micro planes I am going to continue to build and hopefully get a few to fly someday I think it will be just the thing!

JD
 

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kacknor

Build another!
You are welcome. I still have no idea if this is depron or something else altogether. Is there anyone out there who can match it based on how this is behaving with the glue?
 

kacknor

Build another!
An update on my original findings... While it still melts a bit with high temp hot glue, I put together a 16" Nutball with this foam today. I used the hot glue with little difference from DTFB. Yes, on small bits you have to be careful, but for general assembly work it's doing OK. Still haven't picked up my low temp gun to test that.

JD