Pink or Blue foam

[J Reed]

I was a Lowes and Home Depot today looking at their foam. HD had pink foam sheets and Lowes had blue foam sheets.

Is there a difference in the two?

Is one better than the other for a plane?

Are they both paintable?

Please post additional comments if these three questions do not cover the issue.

Thanks

[powerlines]

Everybody I have ever seen used BLUE. I am not sure why.. I think I remember someone saying the pink was not strong enough..

[fr4nk1yn]

Better than either option is to find a siding store and buy Dow Hi-Performance Underlayment. Also blue foam. But it's skinned on both sides and it seems the foam is a little denser than the single sided foam from Lowes. On yeah being doeuble skinned you can peel or clean off the black ink.

The pink is very brittle. Looks "organic" and the the sided that's not skinned with "paper" needs to be sanded. Nothing will stick through the coating. The coating will take the glue or tape and then shed itself from the foam.

The blue can take a fair bit of abuse, OK a lot, before it breaks or becomes unusable.

[Murocflyer]

Originally Posted by fr4nk1yn

Better than either option is to find a siding store and buy Dow Hi-Performance Underlayment. Also blue foam. But it's skinned on both sides and it seems the foam is a little denser than the single sided foam from Lowes. On yeah being doeuble skinned you can peel or clean off the black ink.

The pink is very brittle. Looks "organic" and the the sided that's not skinned with "paper" needs to be sanded. Nothing will stick through the coating. The coating will take the glue or tape and then shed itself from the foam.

The blue can take a fair bit of abuse, OK a lot, before it breaks or becomes unusable.

Do you get that locally? Sounds like some good stuff. How thick is it?

Thanks,

Frank

[Voyager2lcats]

Here is something else that is perfectly acceptable for building. BluCore doesn't meet building code insulation standards so it's scarce. However, Dow replaced it with something just as good (maybe better): Bluelinx 1/4" x 48" x 50' fanfold sheathing. Here's the link: http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?actio...il=&lpage=none

You can probably get it in smaller sections if you talk to the building materials department at Lowe's. Blue foam is foldable/bendable to 90 degree angles with the "grain"- great for skinning formers and sheeting wings. You won't be sorry. Pink foam is generally rigid, but is nice for blocks that can be sanded to shape. There is also a green foam that is similar to BluCore, but I have never seen it other than on a build thread.

[Alpea42]

Yeah the Green foam is called Green Guard Fanfold Sheeting NP-14 by"PActiv Building Products" .I've seen a sample of XP-14 Green Guard and it looked like ,The Right Stuff" almost like depron GreenGuard® XP Siding LoginFoodservice and Food PackagingBuilding ProductsEgg Packaging Building Products > Residential > Siding Underlayment > GreenGuard® Fanfold Siding Underlayment > GreenGuard® XP Siding Underlayment








GreenGuard® XP Siding Underlayment

The GreenGuard® XP Series is our best-value Fanfold Siding Underlayment. It is Extruded Polystyrene Foam (XPS) with extra tough flexible plastic facers on both sides. The XP series features the advanced cut-and-fold hinge for the best layflat performance available. This product easily bends around corners, with excellent resistance to cracking, denting and tearing. NOW THAT'S WHAT WE NEED FOR R/C FLYING MODELS , COURSE THEY DON'T SAY CRASHING One side is printed with grid lines for easy alignment and cutting. Available as 1/4" or 3/8" thickness.
Also available as XFP series, with a perforated reflective facer on one side for enhanced thermal performance under recommended installation guidelines.



Products


Name GreenGuard® XP14 Siding Underlayment - 1/4 in. x 4 ft. x 50 ft. - Fanfold
Best GreenGuard® XFP14 Siding Underlayment - 1/4 in. x 4 ft. x 50 ft. - Fanfold, Reflective 1-side
Best GreenGuard® XP38 Siding Underlayment - 3/8 in. x 4 ft. x 50 ft. - Fanfold
Best GreenGuard® XFP38 Siding Underlayment - 3/8 in. x 4 ft. x 50 ft. - Fanfold, Reflective 1-side
Best





Pactiv's GreenGuard Residing Underlayments are ENERGY STAR Qualified products as a part of EPA's Home Sealing Effort.
Contact Us | Pactiv Benefits© 2007 Pactiv Corporation. All Rights Reserved.Underlayment http://www.wattflyer.com/forums/arch...hp/t-5520.html Here's a plane my son made from it. And here's their web info on it http://www.pactiv.com/green-guard/Vi...?indexNumber=1. The #1 best tho is still the 1/4" Dow Protection Board III or Dow Blue Core is even better. Unless you can find that XP-14 Green Guard. AND THAT'S THE 411 on Green Guard. LOL I just noticed they make fiber egg cartons too. If you could find the Co. that makes Extruded Polystyrene Foam egg cartons and get it before it's formed into the carton ie. while its still a flat sheet that would be worth trying a build with. Or if you could get their food trays in a 2 ft. by 4 ft. size then you'ld have somthin

[darylm44]

Pink foam is reserved for Chellie

[fr4nk1yn]

Originally Posted by Murocflyer

Do you get that locally? Sounds like some good stuff. How thick is it?

There's a few places I've found that had it.
The last bundle I got from a small store in Norfolk, they have a location up in Hampton too.

Then I found ABC Distributors that had the same foam cheaper.
Not sure if they have locations up near you.

[Murocflyer]

Originally Posted by fr4nk1yn

There's a few places I've found that had it.
The last bundle I got from a small store in Norfolk, they have a location up in Hampton too.

Then I found ABC Distributors that had the same foam cheaper.
Not sure if they have locations up near you.

Thanks. I'll check around.

Frank

[Voyager2lcats]

Hey Al, thank you very much for that information. It's always good to have options with build materials. That GreenGuard looks like great stuff.

Originally Posted by Alpea42

Yeah the Green foam is called GreenGuard Fanfold Sheeting NP-14 by"PActiv Building Products" .I've seen a sample of XP-14 GreenGuard and it looked like ,The Right Stuff" almost like depron.

[Moxus]

the colour refers to the density of the foam. pound for pund, the pink and blue foam are exactly the same strength, but the blue foam is denser, so it will be stronger for the same volume.
so wich one is best depends on the application. for foam core of a wing for example (by core, i mean it will be coated either with balsa or composite fiber/resin) i would use the lightest weakest there is, as there is no load to speak of on the core.
but if i was to make a foam model out of foam ONLY and no covering, i would choose more carefully. wing roots (whole wing?), control surfaces and other high load areas would be blue, but not so stressed areas (fuselage for example) would be pink.
of course, this is ideally speaking, and if all the extra work of cutting and gluing is justified is another matter.
but your aircraft is ineviteable going to be build out of a number smaller parts. if you give thought to wich parts will be under highest load, its no extra work just to choose the right foam BEFORE you cut

[Voyager2lcats]

Moxus, thank you for the input on foam density and selection. Even if you are a gremlin.

P.S. I've been to Norway: Kristiansand, Stavanger, and Lindesnes (1974 when I was a Boy Scout). Beautiful country, but boy is the weather fickle! I saw a lot of passengers get seasick on my way across the Skagerak- not a journey for those without their sea legs.

[Moxus]

yes, its a beautiful country in many ways, but the same things that makes it beautiful also makes it impractical and expensive to live here. sure, even we norwegians enjoy the nice nature, either for a hike in the wilderenss, a drive along a lonely road both on 2 and 4 wheels, but that is alse the same nature that makes me drive 120 kilometers to work, when straight line through the air is more like 30 kilometers. and im not even joking, the road is around a fjord, and there is no bridge across it
and try the e6 road in northern norway. not the most prioritized part of the country, and even if norway is a humble country, the e6 is still THE road through norway, so you would expect a little from it.
anyway, at some times you think you get lost up north and wonder if you drove into a side road to nowhere, but no... its still the e6

but i see you have covered the south/west, and thats probably the best part if you like some comfort and warmth over just roughness.
and "comfort and warmth" is relative, the immigrants from africa uses winter clothes in summer, even in the south :P

i havent been to usa yet, but i hope to go there when i finish my studies and get some money between my hands. high up on the list is to drive across usa on a motorbike. and not the route 66 type trip on harley davidson, but more the type where i take the time i want and just improvize along the road, and go to see "all" the corners and blind roads along the way.

[Alpea42]

Thanks for the back ground info Moxus. What is your flying season like way up in the north of Norway? June July Aug. Sept.? That's a neat thing about Wattflyers, people post from all parts of the world. How much does a U.S. gal. of gasoline cost? Or would that equal 4.3 liters. In U. S . dollars

[Moxus]

Originally Posted by Alpea42

Thanks for the back ground info Moxus. What is your flying season like way up in the north of Norway? June July Aug. Sept.? That's a neat thing about Wattflyers, people post from all parts of the world. How much does a U.S. gal. of gasoline cost? Or would that equal 4.3 liters

we fly all year around. if we would fly only when we could wear sunglasses and shorts, we would never fly at all.
so in the winter, we fly mostly gasoline, as they usually are most willing to start and run properly in the cold.
less demanding electrics or very demanding electrics does also work to a degree.
either so little demanding that the frozen battery dont have to deliver much, or so demanding that the battery is kept warm in the cold
one trick we do is to scale down for a slightly smaller pack in the winter, just to make sure it runs warm from motor load. also putting the esc and battery inside the same insulation helps battery hold some heat from the esc.
but, electrics are problematic in the cold. for charging, you need heat too. they just dont take any charge in -30 degrees celcius.
so me for my part, i fly the imac extra in the winter, and small electrics indoors.

the gasoline? you would fall of your chair.
1 liters cost 10 kroner on a good day (usually sunday evening), on normal days they are around 12-13 kroner per liter.
i think there is about 7 kroner to 1 dollar now, so that would make 1 gallon cost 7,4 dollars on a ordinary day.
to make a fair comparison, we have to calculate peoples incomes too. we have rather high incomes here in norway due to socialistic politics, so the average worker has a lot more that in other industrial contries. but still, outrageous fuel prices compared with long distances makes the fuel bill take a considerably big slice of the average joes budget.
average joe pays around 33% of his income in tax, on top of that comes 25% vat of everything you buy, AND you have to pay vat on top of your car taxes! how fair is that?

i could go on forever about the taxes here, but its getting way off topic so i shut myself up now.
be glad you live in the usa, maybe you are struch hard by financial crisis over there right now. so maybe the constellation is that our price to not be affected very much is to have the government rob all our money and put in into swiss bank accounts, "in case of a rainy day".
maybe a thing in between would be the best. with the way our taxes are going, we got enough saving sfor 100 rainy years in a row. and thats not good, because the money is never spent. its just laying there until inflation makes it worthless.

[Alpea42]

Dang Moxus -30 deg. C . We here in So Ca. think it's cold if it's below 50 deg F. Thanks for going off topic and giving some info on life in Norway. Gas today is $1.59 a gal. for Unleaded reg. Where are you flying indoors?

[Moxus]

the indoor flying happends on several places. i fly at school sometimes, just to show off, or because im invited to demonstrate. thats a nice location because of the wast space. at home is also ok, we have a half-deserted barn, wich is mostly used for storage of things we never use. there its good to fly, but its only shelter for wind, not for temperatures so it wont help on the coldest days. or the local sports "stadiums" (if you can call it stadium when its that small) is also nice for indoors flying.
once i had a tiny depron 3d with a wireless camera onboard, wich we fed live pictures to a projector, giving a quite big onboard cam on the wall, at the same time as i was flying within the very same room. that looked quite cool :P
i didnt see it live myself as i was flying of course, and tried as hard as i could to ignore the projector, but on video after it lookes ok.
i want to make a similar setup again, but this time with possibility to record, and put in onboard the imac extra. it just looks so much better when it outdoors and at some speeds that at least might look like it could be a real aircraft to the untrained eye.
how is flying in california? im no weatherman, but i have learn a little, and isnt it true that in hot/humid areas there is also a lot of wind?
here in norway, its either reasonable calm, or very very bad winds, so when to fly or when not to fly its not really anything to wonder about.
but i guess you might have some degree of wind nearly all the time? you just fly anyway?

[Alpea42]

Well this area is 35 mi. east of Los Angelus. It's a coastal desert climate. Of course today we are having a rain storm but we only average 15 inches of rain a year so it's normally dry. The winds are calm except in the springtime afternoon or in the Santa Ana wind from the desert in the fall . For the most part we get about 325 flying days a year. So our weather is nearly perfect.the average winter day time temp. is 60 deg. F, so I'm sure you would wear shorts and sunglassess. LOL

[Voyager2lcats]

Moxus, same here in South Carolina. Very little rain fall, except in Fall/Winter. Average annual temperature is 66.2 degrees Fahrenheit; Annual rainfall is 47.14" (it seems like less than that). We get sunny weather 65% annually, so lots of flying days. Can get windy, but not often. Sound good to you guys?

P.S. High temperture for today is 70 degrees Fahrenheit.

[Murocflyer]

Originally Posted by fr4nk1yn

Better than either option is to find a siding store and buy Dow Hi-Performance Underlayment. Also blue foam. But it's skinned on both sides and it seems the foam is a little denser than the single sided foam from Lowes. On yeah being doeuble skinned you can peel or clean off the black ink.

No luck yet on this miracle foam. The hunt continues.

Frank

[jdetray]

I've always used the Dow blue fanfold foam myself, but the largest foam R/C planes I know about were built with the pink stuff.

24-foot Pink Floyd:


50-foot Big Floyd:


So apparently the pink stuff works OK!

- Jeff

[Alpea42]

Those "Floyd" planes have always sparked my imagination.

[Voyager2lcats]

I know that Pink Floyd flew, but I read something about difficulties getting Big Floyd to fly. Maybe they eventually did?

[jdetray]

I don't think Big Floyd has flown. On its one and only takeoff run in 2005, Big Floyd was about to lift off when its gearbox failed. As far as I know, no further attempts have been made.

Big Floyd was/is powered by three Axi 5330/24 motors using a toothed belt drive system and spinning a custom 60x36 Fiberglass prop. It was the toothed belts that failed.

The smaller 24-foot Pink Floyd flew twice in April 2005. Below is a video of one of the flights.

- Jeff

YouTube Video

[Moxus]

thats awesome Voyager2lcats, we should swap locations

those floyd aircrafs is humungous! i cant believe foam works so good for such a big scale airfraft, and especially pink foam.
maybe i have understimated it. i probably have, because i always viewed it as a cheap-ass small aircraft material, with just one exeption, and that foam cores for bigger wings.
apparently its useful beyond that.
and the fact that its very quick and easy to work with makes it an attractive building material