Any advice on cutting/shaping/anything with foam board? I came across some while doing my vending route at staples and I wanted to make sure it was the right stuff before i go and grab some. Whats the best way to go aboot cutting and putting together? Good ole scissors and glue? and advice is much appreciated!!!
~Chris
ok foam board is not the EASIEST to work with but it is easy to cut except for making sure the blade is sharp enough or it will tear the foam rather than cut it…an exacto knife or a hobby knife will be great but like i said make sure you have a sharp blade…now i used wood glue when i worked with it because that holds up pretty damn good…but to fill in the seams and hide the core of the board i recomend bondo…the stuff works great on it but make sure when the peice is ready for the bondo make sure it is renforced to cos when you sand it smooth it can ruin the pwice…me personally i love to work with it but thats just me..hope this helps a bit man
Thanks i appreciate the feedback, how should I reinforce the foamboard? and am I butting the bondo over the corners to make it look like a rounded/smoothed edge? Sorry for all the questions, i want to get a understanding of what Im working with before I dive head first into it
well use wood in the corners or more foamboard or you can even use bondo in the inside corners but it needs to be reinforced before you start to sand it…what i would do is round the corners as best you can befor you cover it in bondo then put the bondo over itbut be careful not to sand down too much but you may have to do more than one coat of bondo
sounds like a plan, so foam board is generally hard to work with but is it much eaiser than wood? unfortunatle i don’t have any wood cutting materials so my first pack is going to have to be out of this stuff. Can you paint foam board? I saw while i was on my route that they sell Black foam also, would it be easier to go with that or should i just go with the white stuff and paint it?
Also I saw somewhere on here with the plans that someone had made up stencles to cut out and trace for the gun box, anyone remember where they are located and if there are any of these located for the pack parts?
Is foam board a good material to use for the gun at all??
it is much easier than wood…uh yeah it is good for the gun because i had built a gun box outta foam board and coated it in bondo it was STRONG and took a beating but eventually i decided i didnt like how it looked so i trashed it but
the template is on here at the bottom i think…this is the one i used
Thanks for the help man, im going to pick un some tomorrow and get started, i’ll try and post some pics when I can!!!
glad i could help if you go on proptopia search out throwing chicken…he built one outta foamboard and im sure he could give some good advice too…
I build 3 packs out of foamboard, and having sharp blabes is a must. The one thing I must emphisize is you have to take your time. I found working with it easy, but then again I’m no master at wood either lol. But I used hot glue for mine. I recommend a low temp glue if you go with the hot glue gun route. The only reason is on one nutrona wand, I used a strickly high temp glue gun and in the process of spray painting the thing here in AZ (which can get to 100+ degrees in the summer, and thats a cool day) the gun literally fell apart at the seams. I almost cried. But, for some reason, the gon box I used a low temp gun to glue everything together held up just fine…was it luck, was it the glue…I don’t know, so I recommend the low temp guns to anyone who wants to use hot glue. PM me anytime you want some advise and you can see my post " Time to unveil my progess" farther down to see what you can do with foamboard 
yeah i knew i was forgetting something…patience is a MUST for it…and yeah i had used hotglue on a frist attempt but it was a high tep so im sure ya know what happened there
Couldn’t you use a small right-angled piece of something, like PNormans plans suggest wood, to sharpen the right angles and hold both pieces together? I used this method with some craft bars, squared, cutting to size needed and super gluing them in the joints and corners of the plastic pieces, REALLY helped. Then reinforced with epoxy putty. The only thing that scares me about foamboard is it’s poster board with really really soft foam in the middle, it can dent so easily, no? I dunno, never built a pack out of it, but maybe i’ll try it as my cousin is begging me to make him one. He’s trying to make one out of wood himself, but no experience and being young can kick that energy in a second. Good luck Ghosthead7!
-Thiago
yeah it does dent VERY easily so also be careful not to accidentally bang the peice into anything…but that is where the bondo comes in there..that will keep it from denting like it does…
sweet guys, thanks for all the help
Foamboard wand:
Coated with lots of filler/bondo and sanded smooth. I can’t stress how important covering the thing with at least a 1mm skin of bondo is. It’s not too hard if you’re proficient with coating, and it can be time consuming, but if you’re not able to work with wood/plastic, it’s the very best method available to you.
Good luck.
I’ve learned something recently; some glues actually disolve the foam in the foamboard. I’ve tried both superglue and goop, and both eat right into the foam on any exposed areas (luckily for me, I was smart enough to test the glues on a small piece before gluing anything major). I suppose you could still use those glues as long as you were only applying glue to the posterboard side, though.
One question: What type of paint won’t eat through the foam? I’ll probably be bondoing the whole thing, so I guess it won’t matter, but I am curious.
Perhaps I can help a bit here too…
I made a pack out of foamboard last year, seen here:
http://home.centurytel.net/chesme/pack2.jpg
http://home.centurytel.net/chesme/mypack01.jpg
(pardon the cat 
)
What you see there is mostly foamboard with some posterboard and found objects for details. Sadly, I did not get to finish it, but it was done enough for the general public. I used Norm’s plans to make it.
This might be just me, but I find working in foamboard quite easy. A sharp hobby knife is most needed, like others have stated. T squares are your friends; get a large one and a small, 12" one. I did not have to reinforce the foamboard at all, so I don’t think it is needed. The finished pack was sturdy and strong (it did, however, get knocked off a table by the cat in the picture above…only damage was the bumper cracked in half and paint was chipped). I only used wood glue to on the whole thing (works wonders!).
A tool that I wouldn’t have done this project without is a rabbet cutter, http://www.dickblick.com/zz149/09/. You NEED that, trust me.
If you are concerned about perfect right angles when gluing pieces together, buy some Legos and create a corner wall. This will give you a good right angle to press the foamboard into… if you make two corner walls, you can use it as a sort of mold, compressing the foamboard inbetween the walls and letting the glue dry.
I used white foamboard (as you can see above) but this year I am remaking it in black foamboard. Either works fine, but when the black paint chips off of the white, it’s very noticeable.
Why bondo when you can use a safer option? I used Elmer’s Wood Filler to fill in cracks and cover the exposed foam. It works wonders and is not so toxic to work with; you can even touch it with your fingers! Best of all, it now comes in an easy squeeze tube.
You can sand the edges of the foamboard to get a smooth cut, but be carful of sanding the paper side of the board. Too much sanding there will leave a fuzzy texture you might not notice until you spray paint it.
I did make a gun in foamboard as well, but I didn’t get a picture of that for some reason. It was just as sturdy as the rest of the pack. Unfortunately, t’s been dismantled now, since I’m using the switches again this year.
That’s about all I can think of that might help out… if you have any questions, I’ll be glad to answer.
An addendum:
To futher illustrate how sturdy the pack I made was: I tried to salvage a lot of what I made from that previous pack, but the glue is so strong I could not pull apart the “boxes” that make up the pack. They are there for good, so looks like I’ll be remaking the whole thing. Oh well… :lol:
The main reason most people might coat their foamboard packs in bondo isn’t as much for filling cracks or covering exposed foam (which of course it does) as it is for a few other things. For one thing, it makes it so that you can sand your parts without worrying about screwing up the paper. Second, and more importantly, it makes the finished pack far more durable. Sure, foamboard is sturdy, but it can dent if it’s bumped, and I would assume that it wouldn’t be too difficult to puncture it.
Interesting looking tool, though. So, if I’m not mistaken, that tool allows you to make 90 degree joints between pieces of foamboard without having exposed foam on either piece?
Nice bumper. Did you make that out of foamboard as well? Is so, how?
Well, that’s the exact thing I used the wood filler for as well…it’s just not as toxic and that’s the plus with me. Besides, if you are just covering the outside with bondo, it’s not going to prevent a good dent from a really hard poke…tis the nature of such a light weight material. But truly, I’ve been throwing that pack around this room for almost a year and it hasn’t dented yet. (and I do mean throwing…this room is cramped and it’s always in the way :lol: )
Yes, that’s exactly what the rabbet cutter does. This might better illustrate what it does, if you still have questions (as well as show you how to make your own): http://www.terragenesis.co.uk/infopages/page381.html
And, yes again… I made that bumper out of foamboard and posterboard. It took a little time to plan it out, but it came out better than I had hoped. I’m not sure if I can explain it well without pictures, but all I did was make some templates on the pc. There are 8 foamboard pieces total, four being guides for the curved inner parts of the bumper “arms”. Edit: Found an old link that will help. I got my inspiration from here: http://proptopia.com/viewtopic.php?t=18.
A really good poke wouldn’t dent or puncture the foam, it would crack the bondo. If you coat the entire thing with bondo, it shouldn’t dent at all, unless you’re speading it way too thin. Bondo is pretty rigid when it cures (it’s almost rock hard). By the way, just in case there’s confusion here, we’re talking about the bondo auto body filler, not the bondo spot putty. Spot putty is good for glossing over imperfections (small cracks, pinholes, etc), but doesn’t add much strength. The body filler on the other hand would crack before it would dent, but I would think it would take a pretty hard hit to do that (and anyway, all you’d need to do to fix that would be to fill the crack). Basically, a coating of bondo would provide a tough, rigid shell protecting the foam. Obviously not as tough as fiberglass or a thick plastic, but it would be pretty durable.