With what happend do you think foamez now that they wont be selling clark foam… Do you guys have an alternate place to get your leash plugs and fin systems? I’ve always counted on them and never dreamed this would happen…Looks like i’ll have to switch over to the EPS now… Now I have to relearn everything I read on here for PU with EPS and epoxy… can you do resin swirls and such with epoxy? Where do you get the EPS from? I understand I will need to get a big block and hot wire it… Also… microballoons? What the hell are those and where do you order them… I searched all over
I don’t know about Foam EZ. I went by Fiberglass Hawaii in Santa Cruz yesterday. They’re making plans - going to offer “styrofoam” blanks to go with both their own epoxy & the Sys 3 stuff they sell. They were limiting every big customer to 10 Clark blanks each and weren’t retailing any. They had sold out of 500 blanks, except for a few oddball short ones, between 1pm & closing on Monday. There was even a stack marked Tyler - if he called up to SC from El Segundo, he must be pretty worried.
Their main concern was that the $100K in poly resin inventory they own might bring it all down. Hopefully, all that poly resin out there will equal out to all the inventories of blanks and nobody will be dumping that crap down the storm drains.
If anyone has other uses for waterclear polyester resin, you could probably make some low ball offers. And any you’ve got in inventory, make sure to pull in enough ding repairs to use it up.
I also noticed that Fiberglass Supply put up a nice, calm letter on their website. ( http://www.fiberglasssupply.com/Allocation_letter/allocation_letter.html ) No new customers, no ‘extraordinary’ buying patterns for old ones. Sounds like they’re trying very hard to do the right thing with the inventory they have. Even though I don’t buy blanks from them, I appreciate that way of doing business.
You can still use the poly resin for repair and boats… im sure everyone who has a poly board definetly wont want to get rid of it… and will do what they can to keep it up… Ive got some old boards here that my cousin let sit in the sun that might be worth ripping the lam off one day to re glass…
Is there any other online places to order the fin systems and all that stuff if foam ez goes out too?
on a much smaller scale a friend of mine bought 5 gallons on friday.fortunaetly we have two boards to glass but there both under 6’6. wo that leaves us with at least 3 gallons left over.
Once upon a time there was talk by those who shaped eps, then sealed it with 3 layers of latex, then glassed w/poly…
On the day after “Black Monday” I dropped by Foam E-Z to primarily “wish them well in their future business endeavors” as they were immediately one of the first things I thought of when the news broke, as I mentioned in my initial post in the “Clark Foam is over” thread. Although I had only been into Foam E-Z a few times to buy blanks and supplies, I not only felt obligated to pay my respect and wish them well, it was something I truly wanted to do from the bottom of my heart as Brad and all the employees were more than class acts and fine business men in helping a humble, beginning backyarder make his dreams come true.
After waiting around about an hour to an hour and a half with about three other gentlemen we finally got to talk to, I believe it was Grant R. (forgive me if I’m wrong, and if I’m correct thank you Grant) as he came outside to post the temporarily closed sign outside the shop and, were then shortly greeted by Brad as he drove up to handle business in what was to say the least a melancholy day filed with what I could only imagine to be chaos. Phones were absolutely ringing off the hook as you might suspect. While there was little doubt there would be NO blank sales (and very much understandably so) these gentle men actually let the few of there gather some small supplies in the midst of the crisis. This was a true testament to the character of Brad’s business ethics and his outstanding employees. And while I got a chance to personally thank Brad and Grant for their service to the shaping and surfing community and wish them the absolute best in the future I would like to publicly thank them again in this forum on this thread for their outstanding contribution.
To Brad and the Boys… THANK YOU.
Loyal customer for life… Tony.