UK - Foam board at a reasonable price - FOUND !

andy_spoo

Member
I've been looking for a good price for foam board, here in the UK. It's hard to compete with the Dollar store stuff you US guys can buy. As well as being labeled 'foam board', it's also know as 'poster board and 'presentation board' over here. Is that also true of the U.S. ?

Viking direct http://www.viking-direct.co.uk

All these sheets are 5mm thick. The prices shown below include VAT (that's 20% TAX for those that don't know!).

A3, pack of 10 sheets = £9.59
A2, pack of 20 sheets = £28.79
A1, pack of 10 sheets = £27.59

(I paid £10 for a single sheet of A1 in staples, so as you can compare above, Viking blows that away!).

Orders over £30 are delivered free.
You can get 9% cash back via www.quidco.co.uk

If you just order the 10 pack of A3 sheets(as I just did), the delivery price is £3.48

They accept Paypal as well as the usual credit-cards.


Hope this info helps some of the UK people on here. So now, no excuse for not trying to build a foamy :)
 

xuzme720

Dedicated foam bender
Mentor
Over here poster board is a thick paper product, thicker than construction paper and fairly stiff.
 

RoyBro

Senior Member
Mentor
For clarification you might list the actual dimensions rather than the common size. Here in the US, A1 is a steak sauce. :rolleyes:
 

andy_spoo

Member
A1 is a common size over here! But yup, I have seen A1 sauce (we'd just call it brown sauce). My partners son is married to a U.S. girl, so we get a lot of cross comparisons/confusions of stuff.

Don't your sizes go the same as ours?

A1 is twice the size of A2
A2 is twice the size of A3
A3 is twice the size of A4

Since you're unlikely to be ordering it for the U.S., I think the U.K. model makers will understand me.
 

andy_spoo

Member
standard_paper_sizes.jpg
 

RoyBro

Senior Member
Mentor
A1 is a common size over here! But yup, I have seen A1 sauce (we'd just call it brown sauce). My partners son is married to a U.S. girl, so we get a lot of cross comparisons/confusions of stuff.

Don't your sizes go the same as ours?

A1 is twice the size of A2
A2 is twice the size of A3
A3 is twice the size of A4

Since you're unlikely to be ordering it for the U.S., I think the U.K. model makers will understand me.

No our common names for paper sizes follow function, such as Letter - 8.5 x 11 in. , Legal - 8.5 x 14 in., and Ledger - 11 x 17 in. But mostly we just refer to the actual dimensions.

You're right, we probably won't be buying, but for the sake of conversation it's still nice to know.
So it appears that your A1 size is nearest to our dollar tree foam board size of 20 x 30 in.
 
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xuzme720

Dedicated foam bender
Mentor
In certain circles here in the states, they use the A designations, but for the most part what Roy said is true. I think again that it won't matter much as we'll just pop on down to the dollar tree and pick up a sheet or twenty. :)
Sorry, I like to remind the people here in the states, just how lucky we are. It's not arrogance, it's an attempt to keep us humble and not take it for granted.
 

Robin

Member
A1 is a common size over here! But yup, I have seen A1 sauce (we'd just call it brown sauce). My partners son is married to a U.S. girl, so we get a lot of cross comparisons/confusions of stuff.

Don't your sizes go the same as ours?

A1 is twice the size of A2
A2 is twice the size of A3
A3 is twice the size of A4

Since you're unlikely to be ordering it for the U.S., I think the U.K. model makers will understand me.

Now that´s interesting!

Until now I thought that these paper sizes were a unique german thing - as there are called DIN A1 and so on, and DIN is the abbrevation for "Deutsches Institut für Normierung" (german institute for standardization).
 

Balu

Lurker
Staff member
Admin
Moderator
The abbreviation is correct, but just because it's normed by a German institute doesn't mean it can not be used elsewhere ;).

From Wikipedia:
Early in the twentieth century, Dr Walter Porstmann turned Lichtenberg's idea into a proper system of different paper sizes. Porstmann's system was introduced as a DIN standard (DIN 476) in Germany in 1922, replacing a vast variety of other paper formats. Even today the paper sizes are called "DIN Ax" in everyday use in Germany, Austria, Spain and Portugal.

Even though it got adopted into ISO 216, most people still call it "DIN A4" - and it seems to be used in nearly all countries of the world, apart from the US and Canada of course. ;)