remove film from foam board when gluing?

[Anonymous]

When gluing two or more pieces of foam board togeather, do you remove the
clear film from the foam? I'm using the pink stuff from Home Depot.

[rrinker]

The pink stuff I get from HD doesn;t have any film. The commonly available Dow blue stuff (which I never see around here) does have a film, at least their one product does. That film should be removed. But again, the pink I have (and I bought 5 sheets so far) has not had any film on it.

--Randy

[Anonymous]

I just finished triming up a couple of pices i'm going to glue to double the thicknes, on the printed side of the sheets I have there is a clear film.
I guess maybe there from differnt plants?

[simon1966]

Yes Yes Yes......remove the film. I did not, and in a couple of places where I have glued the cork roadbed to the foam, the film has lifted from the foam and caused my track to shift! Now I remove it every time.

[mikebonellisr]

Yes remove the film.If not,realize that you are bonding the film to the other piece of foam board and not board to board.you will be relying on the films bond to the foam board,which is not too strong(nor is it ment to be)

[rrinker]

Wouldn't surprise me if different Home Depots in different parts of the country stocked differnet products fromthe same manufacturer. You dfinitely have an Owens-Corning product, since the pink color is their trademark. The blue stuff comes from Dow. Dow has a blue extruded polystyrene with and without the film, the one with the film is intended to be used where a moisture barrier is required. I would assume Owens-Corning has similar products, If both are available, I would suspect the non-film version is slightly less expensive and would be the product of choice.
That's the problem with Lowes and Home Depot, you never know what you're going to get until you go in and look. Too much variation from place to place, it's hard to make recommendations to anyone who is not local and goes to the exact same store as you. Note the MR articles using PL-something or other adhesive. No place around here has that, only the Liquid Nails brand. Guess in the Milwaukee area, the PL brand dominates.

--Randy

[orsonroy]

I've only seen the film on 1/2" pink foam. In general, I remove the film before adding the foam to the layout, with one exception: I'm using the 1/2" foam for homemade roadbed, and I leave the film on both sides in place while I'm laying the roadbed strips. That way, the roadbed strips (which are 1.5" wide) don't snap while they're being bent into curves. Once the glue is dry, I peel the top layer of film off and sand the roadbed smooth. I always make sure that the film on the bottom of the roadbed is fully intact, and I haven't had a single lifting issue. (and I've laid over 200 feet of the stuff)