Well guys my buddy Danny Hirsch has finally gotten his mold operational for EPS individually blown EPS blanks. The beads are adhered together very well and can be planed with a regular planer without blowing out. Length is 9’5" x 3-3/4" width, I can cut and glue to your rocker and stringer dimensions. The short blank is 7’0" with enough room to do a good fun shape.
Jim: Where is he operating? Any contact or WWW info? Thanks! Tom S.
…Yeah,fess up, …what’s the bucks,and stringer options?Herb
Jim, I can’t wait to see. I’ll be there in July. Can you get one for me to pick up then?
this is gonna sound dumb, but when i was a kid my father had these molds to make of all things, duck decoys for hunting, we would buy closed cell styrene in beads , then we would pour them in the two piece lead mold then, drop them in a tub of boiling water for a set time, kind of like making boiled eggs.any way we would vary the wieght and density of the “blank” by adding and subtracting beads,they had a tendency to be corky and topheavy causing them to flip over during heavy winds, we would throw in old bolts, sparkplugs lead wieghts in the mold to get them balanced, but you know what those things were tough i still have em 25 after years - my point is has any one tried making surfboard blanks this way, 60’s popouts? will epoxy or dhp?,or f/glass bond to bead styrene ?you could make blanks for DIRT CHEAP if you could make surfboard blank mold and boil em
Very interesting… not dumb at all. If you click on the link Tom Sterne (EDRO Styrofoam - Bingo) provided in the other thread on EDRO/Insulfoam, the home page for Insulfoam has a photo of a model’s hand with loose beads being poured through the fingers. Probably the same kind of beads you used for the decoys. I would think however that Jim Phillip’s friend or Greg Loehr would be the route for a product ready to go with all the bugs worked out. http://www.premier-industries.com/insulfoam.cfm?topic=locations
While reviewing the website, I noticed that they offer custom molding services for packaging and “Molded Foam Componentry - for boats.” Greg Loehr has probably checked into this already but if not too expensive, maybe a way to obtain custom molded blanks without as much waste as with cutting blanks from billets? http://www.premier-industries.com/packaging.cfm
Im guessing, an it is a pretty educated guess, that you guys couldn’t afford the cost of the molds. It becomes low cost in quantity. Also you guys are too cheap. Sluggo
You know, I have a mold… you guys are giving me some ideas… looks like…there goes some more money…
Greg, Been trying to find out more about EDRO foam, you said the machines come out of Italy, is the company Nuova Idropress? http://www.nuova-idropress.com/
the “blanks” came out ROCK HARD and LIGHT we would drop the lead cast mold in a big tub of water on top of a propane burner took about 30 min to “cook” warning the bolts would corode and cause the decoy to swell or split if you use wieghts make sure they are non corosive