Making your own ground foam

[athaprime]

Has anyone ever tried to make their own ground foam? How did you do it? I'm thinking of buying a meat chopper and grinding up some foam rubber and then dying it. Have any of you tried this? Was it successful?

[Morpar]

Don't buy a meat chopper, just use a blender! There was an article in either MR or RMC sometime in the 80's on making your own ground foam. I did it, and it worked well. Get an old foam cushion, tear it into chunks that would fit in your blender, then dye the chunks with a fabric dye. I used Rit dark green. Vary how long you leave the chunks in the dye, as this will give you different shades. Follow the box directions. When the chunks are good and dry, toss them into the blender, put on the lid, and fire it up! The center of the chunks will be lighter than the outside, giving some realistic color variation. It works well, won't hurt the blender, and is cheap! Good luck, Morpar.

[Anonymous]

I have tried the same thing using a blender, but I used some leftover carpet padding. That did not work very well at all, due to the amount of recycled materials in the padding,but I agree that using good quality foam will produce good results.I would, however recommend grinding the foam up in the blender with plenty of water, then dying it.

[trainsrus1]

I have tried both the meat grinder and the blender. The blender worked best by far and was a lot less work. I used carpet pad for different textures mixed together. Looked best for my use. Never tried to dye the foam, just painted it after it was glued in place.
I also used the blender to chop up foil for use as scrap metal loads. Just glue the foil to a piece of foam board cut to fit the car. Using colored foil from candy wrappers works best. Foil can also be painted if needed.