Had a go at recycling polystyrene today. Gluing together old fish/veg boxes is a lot of work but it’s doable. I hope this encourages those of use on remote islands with no other source of foam.
I then tried putting some blocks into a vacuum press and heated initially to around 80 degrees C. I managed to get some pieces to bind. The pressure was at -80 (can’t remember unit). However, not enough surface area was binding. After some initial excitement I couldn’t quite improve this to actually fully rebind at bead level. When I got to 100 degrees celsius the styrofoam fully melted. I will keep experimenting to try to find a more exact temperature but basically I think it needs some glue assistance to bind.
I don’t know how Marko Foam do it without reblowing. Maybe they use rubber to rip the beads to something more uniform and then pressurise the air itself rather than mechanical pressing.
In terms of gluing bits together I don’t really have enough time anymore, whereas in the past I would just slowly get on with it. The slowdown is the awkward ridges. If you can find foam that is a lot more uniform, like from a Bodyboard then it’s going to be a lot easier.
The end result needs a hard shell to hide the seams, like wood.
I’m thinking now where to get enough square pieces of foam from easier to work than the boxes. Other than this I might have to admit defeat and buy a new poor quality block. (can’t get blanks here)
Nice Huck. Sharkcountry just posted some EPS strip build pics as well.
EPS will start to fail in one fashion or another when temps exceed 160 F or 65 C.
For myself this was only a couple botched fin box installs from exo-therming resin discovered during a rebuild. For others this was a whole board destroyed in a hot car or board bag.
I imagine they are using steam and pressure and some fresh PS beads to help bind those fused blanks during the molding process.
It would be nice to recycle waste cuts from the blocks as recycle for EPS is hours away at the block factory.
Trouble is taking the time to cut them square to allow them to glue nicely and you still end up with a tricky blank.
My problem with they call recycling EPS is that it uses a lot of energy. The foam is ground into small pieces and sometimes melted back into the small beads.
If there is a problem getting the source material, then it would make sense to do this. Gluing up pieces of foam to make the shape you want doesn’t require all that energy.
I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t already have the foam.
I get a lot of eps waste from cutting blanks on my cnc at the moment I take all the block stuff to a company and it gets recycled, I can then also buy new blocks that are made from part recycled eps. what I get left with is a lot of the fine grindings that the cutter makes which I think melting and sending to be re used. Like you im aware of all the energy needed however that really just means we need to switch to more renewable sources of energy.
I cam across this website which has some quite interesting things on and in the forum there is talk of trying to use solar and mirrors to generate the heat for machines which sound interesting. https://preciousplastic.com/en/machines.html
If there is a way to bond the foam without glue that would be great but otherwise I would think the amount of glue needed would probably out way the use of existing foam.
will be interested to hear if you figure anything out!
I saw that sight a while ago. I agree about the alternative energy sources, but there is still energy being used.
There’s a guy on the big island, Gary that is the father of compsand boards. He pretty much developed the methods and equipment used for making veneer covered boards. A few years ago, I contacted him and hoped to meet with him, but our plans didn’t work for that day. He was trying to work with a former geothermal plant site and take advantage of the existing steam and heat and use that to work some of the equipment needed to make bamboo veneer and products from the veneer. This included growing Bamboo on the property. I don’t know if he ever got to do it. He has since started using locally grown woods, some of which have no other use.
Another friend of mine has a large piece of property and started growing balsa and Wiliwili (like balsa) on his property. He’s already made 2 solid wood surfboards. He gave the first one, a gun, to Shane Dorian, who is a friend, and hopes Shane will ride it at Jaws.
I’m currently making a Balsa board from strips of model airplane Balsa wood. I hate seeing all the waste from chambering solid wood, so I’m trying to make this strong but not solid.
I’ve always admired the inspiring DIY of Sharkcountry and his brother Bernie. So much so that I saved this photo of one of their recycled EPS canoes… this is from quite a long time ago.
