Has anyone had any experience with this foam? I bought a refurb forumula fun board from Marko a few years ago with plans to reshape it, but abandoned the project and sold it before I tore into it. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to sell this foam as raw material as far as I can tell. Some of their bigger boards might yield enough foam make a desirable board though.
From TSJ V.12 No.3 in “The Inventing of Stanley Plekunas”
“Stan Hands me a surprisingly light, rectangular piece of blue foam, claiming that this closed-cell material is much harder than conventional foam, takes on no water, and so can be shaped and reshaped, allowing for the hardening or softening of an edge, mowing an additional 16th-inch from the bottom, turning a round tail into a swallow tail or whatever, benefiting any rider interested in trying to perfect a particular design.”
Is this the foam that Stan had all those years ago? It would be such a fun way to create boards, as well as being able to ride a specifically designed machine for some of my local treacherous and tubular breaks.
So you could build a board and surf it with no fiberglass?? Then take it home and reshape it before next session? Sounds pretty cool, be interesting to hear from someone who’s done just that.
Marko sells a co-polymer foam called I-foam. This, or a denser version, may be what they use for their “Formula Fun” surfboards.
I suspect I-foam is really “Arcel” foam (30% polyethylene and 70% polystyrene).
If I was motivated enough, I could do this with 6-pcf XLPE Bellyboards/Paipos I have made. But I would not want to build a board more than 48” long and less than 3” thick with it.
I have messed around with iFoam. It makes sense that the formula fun boards would be a higher density version. The ifoam blank and the formula fun board I had were not the same densities.
I’d think any one of these closed foams would need some sort of stringer above a certain length/thickness, but you could add some sort or reinforcement and still have room to work around and shape afterward. The formula fun boards do have wood stringers in them