Is there a big floatation difference between regular foam and Styro foam? Steve
There is a diffrence, not huge but definitely an advantage. Styro is less dense and had a diffrent cell structure. Styro\epoxy is lighter than poly until you ding it. They soak up a lot of water.
Is there a big floatation difference between regular foam and Styro foam? > Steve Hello Steve. Superior flotation is always achieved with lighter weight-to-volume no matter what type of foam you’re talking about. Light weight is the key. There are as many differing densities of styro as there are of polyester foam, but generally styro is lighter than poly foam. Styro also has the advantage of having memory, so styro always wants to return to the original shape after an impact or when flexing during a turn. This carachteristic radically reduces pressure dings and delams since the lamination won’t shear away from the blank easily. It also preserves for the life of the board that crisp new-board feeling of snappiness in turns, better float and better paddling since you aren’t giving away as much energy while you paddle or turn. At Surftech we use 1-lb per cu.ft. foam which allows us to put lots more glass etc. on our boards and have them still be super light. The pressure laminating system we use forces the resin down into the foam blank which displaces lots of the air space in the foam. This solves the water uptake problem that cold-process hand laminated epoxy/styro boards have been known for in the past. Fritz http://www.surftech.com