Repair & maintenance: Buoyant foam

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Buoyant foam

Printed From: Yachts and Yachting Online
Category: General
Forum Name: Repair & maintenance
Forum Discription: Questions & tips on the subject
URL: http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=13150
Printed Date: 25 Jun 25 at 7:13am
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 9.665y - http://www.webwizforums.com

Topic: Buoyant foam

Posted By: 423zero
Subject: Buoyant foam
Date Posted: 24 Aug 18 at 9:40am

Is their a buoyant foam available that doesn't take up water ?

Looking for something fairly rigid too and that can be shaped.

Replies:

Posted By: JimC
Date Posted: 24 Aug 18 at 9:58am

Dow Floormate doesn't take up much water. I've used it for boats.

Posted By: 423zero
Date Posted: 24 Aug 18 at 10:06am

Would this stuff do ?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_sacat=0&_nkw=styrofoam+block&_frs=1

Would you be able to lay GRP straight on to this once you have required shape ?

Looking to increase buoyancy at stern of Sprint, intend to fill both sides of deck, going forwards approx' 18", will put 2 ports through to maintain drainage, with flaps to prevent water ingress.

Posted By: JimC
Date Posted: 24 Aug 18 at 12:00pm

Dow Floormate is styrofoam, so basically yes. However there are an awful lot of grades of styrofoam, and when I researched it they seemed to vary greatly in the amount of water they take up. I'm not sure to what extent you can get spec sheets from ebay vendors or even trust them to send what the spec sheet says.

You can put an epoxy/glass layup on styrofoam, but I'm pretty sure polyester will reduce it to a sticky mess.

Posted By: 423zero
Date Posted: 24 Aug 18 at 6:02pm

May try to deck over, I have access to sheets of glossy white GRP.
Have seen foam react, don't fancy spending hours shaping something to see it melt.

Posted By: iGRF
Date Posted: 24 Aug 18 at 6:21pm

Go down to the nettles in most clubs and you'll find an old sailboard or two, lots of them are filled with a good quality low density styrofoam. Mistral, F2, Fanatic are probably best of the old ones..

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Posted By: 423zero
Date Posted: 24 Aug 18 at 6:45pm

Must have cut up 30 of these boards last time we had a skip, hardly any abandoned boats or anything else really, we have half a dozen large blue barrels full of sails and dozens of masts and booms.

Posted By: Sam.Spoons
Date Posted: 24 Aug 18 at 7:42pm

The clue is in the name, "styrofoam/polystyrene". The solvent in polyester resin is 'styrene' and will dissolve styrofoam with extreme prejudice.

Also polystyrene (and polyester resin based gap) absorb water to varying degrees.

Most early high performance sailboards were constructed with epoxy and polystyrene when surfboards and early/lower tech sailboards used PU foam and polyester resin.

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