I have just glued up a sheet and I am trying to decide on the glass schedule. It would be helpful to know what this stuff is…
Thanks to Benny1(correct ID???) for the glue recommendation, the elmers polyurethane glue worked great.
Josh
I looked online but couldnt find it on the homedepot website. But, on the lowes website (probably same stuff) it is 1# EPS. its going to be pretty soft, so be careful and I would suggest an extra layer of glass.
yeah chances are its #1 i have made a few boards out of it and i glassed heavy, two on the bottom and three on the top. dont forget that you have to use epoxy.
Hey Josh…
The foam you buy off the shelf at HD is 1 lb. You can special order 2lb. The minimum recommended glassing over 1 lb is 3x6 deck and 2x6 bottom. And you did glue in a stringer , right ? I have a few 1 pounders that are still alive. They surf good but don’t last too long. And if you get any dings, get out of the water ASAP !
dower
yeah thats good info dower i shaped a fish a while back out of eps and it rode great. until it got banged takeing it out of the car, i surfed for a few hours and when i took it out it was leaking and bubling. since then the board doesnt ride as well as those first few times.
Thanks guys, I kinda thought it might be #1, but I was hoping for 1.5 or 2…
No center stringer. I planned on doing balsa perimeter stringers with tail and nose blocks, but seeing as it is #1, I might go for the first balsa comp sand. I already planned on vac baggin the lam, but I was gonna wait until the next one to do the full balsa.
If anyone knows of an eps or corecell supplier in the central/ east Florida area I would appreciate the info.
Josh
i dont know the name off the top of my head but its like central florida foam, or something like that. i could be way off though. but its on highway 50 in bithlo, halfway between cocoa and orlando. coming from the coast it would be on the left its just a few miles past the 520 interchange, ( coming into orlando) its kind of a newer building, if you hit chuluota rode you’ve gone to far.
hey turbo, i think it may be universal foam you are talking about?? if so, they are kind of a ripoff. i got a quote for a billet of 2# eps that was twice as much as another foam manufacturer in orlando, cellofoam.
yep thats right. i have driven past it a few times and thought about stoping in but after a few attempts with eps i am going to stick with clark.
Glad the glue worked out. Everyone’s right, HD EPS is 1#. Minimuim triple 6 oz on the deck. Even that gets mushy.
You can also just go to Michael’s or someplace and buy a bunch of 1/16" 4"x36" ‘hobbyist’ balsa. Bag that onto the deck and don’t worry about the bottom or rails. End blocks if you want, but don’t go crazy because the board isn’t going to last forever anyway 
if you bagged a layer of 1/16" balsa on the deck only, one layer of 6 oz under & two layers over, you’d end up with a pretty nice board. No heel dents, the one sandwich skin would hold your rocker but allow flex, and it would be dang light.
I’d probably bag on the deck skin with 1 layer under, 1 layer over and with the rails only squared up. Once that’s done, it’ll be a lot less floppy as you shape your rails & put in bottom contours. Then bag on your 2 layers of bottom glass, wrapping at least one of them up onto the deck enough to catch that layer of glass on top of the balsa. Lastly, hand laminate your 3rd layer of 6 oz on the deck, again wrapping the rails down onto the bottom.
Meecrafty builds balsandos without a bottom skin. He does do rails & blocks, but you might not want to bother for your first one.
That’s interesting. The EPS I get at Lowes and HD (blue 2"x24"x96" sheets) weighs 2# per cuft. I know, I weighed the stuff on a scale certfied for use as a UPS scale. One sheet that size weighs ~2 2/3 lbs. I had to figure this out because I build other stuff besides surfboards and its critical that I know the desity so I can get an approximate volume of the finished product. It tough calculating volumes of odd shapes.
What are you folks picking up?
That’s not EPS, its XPS.
Yeah, I called cellofoam awile ago, I’ll probably buy a billet from them for the next set.
Benny1, I think I have decided to do the deck with 1/8 balsa and glass the bottom with double 6. I’ve lurked through all of the comp sand threads, and when Meecrafty built that half’n’half board, I thought it was a great idea. I still plan on doing the rails and blocks, I think that the balsa rails are one of the key ingredients. This is the first vac bag, balsa, eps, frankenboard, but I have done quite a few others, I enjoy the new challenge. I have a clark blank on the rack now and I just want to finish it so I can move on to the cutting edge(within my garage)of board construction.
I went to micheals in search of balsa, It was a little to expensive in my opinion. I’ll probably order online from lonestar.
Question: What can I use to beef up the fin box area(futures), chunks of heavier foam???
Josh
yeah rasta youll need to reinforce the box area…use lots of glass inside and outside…or make support flanges using sheet of balsa or pvc or whatever with glass underneath…you can play with some spare foam b4hand…small stringers work too
lokbox is lots more solid and you can use fcs fins with them…
cheers
You can use FCS with LockBox? I never thought of that… you just opened up a whole new world for me.
Thanks!
Spoons