Pulled down an old blank that a friend “half-shaped” over a year ago and never got glassed. Took one look at it and theres small bugs crawling in and out of the foam. Anyone ever see this before? Probably not a big deal. They’re super tiny insects and can’t imagine it would take more than a couple minutes with the aircompressor to evict them from their foam universe. I guess im just curious if anyone else has had this happen or if theres a way of storing blanks to avoid these buggers.
Yeah, we had a problem about a decade ago, but they seemed to have moved on. Here in the islands blanks attract all kinds of insects. Roaches are another problem, they burrow holes in and lay their eggs.
The black carpenter bees loved the wiliwili wood we harvested when the state was cutting them all down. I think that attracted the bees and they took a liking to EPS foam. Here’s a shot of a canoe I was making back then. I wasn’t sure about the hull shape, so it sat a while under that tarp next to a pile of wiliwili wood. Those bees make a perfectly round hole then lay their eggs in it and fill the hole with honey like substance. Every now and then a new bee would emerge, and the newborns would be yellow.
I bought 2 big 4 inch thick slabs of XPS once for 10$. While I was transporting them home, I found that one had become an ant hive. I just sprayed it with bug killer, then shaped a paddling board with it and left the ants. Spackle where necessary then glass with solid color. I also did a fabric inlay. I used to sit on the board and paddle it with a kayak paddle while my daughter paddled a stand up in flat water.
