ground foam

[Anonymous]

I, being a cheapscate, would like to know, how can I make my own "ground foam"? How or what do I use to grind foam?

[Budliner]

A Blender

[Anonymous]

Hey Budliner have you actually made ground foam in a blender??? What kind of foam do you use?

[Budliner]

it could happen

[Fergmiester]

Dear Beer n Polka [#welcome]

There was an artile in MR about two years ago regarding the making of trees. What the guy did was take a wire wheel, attach it to a high speed drill and run it over foam board. I've mad ground foam in ther process of re grading road bed. It was not intentionalbut rather a mess. To do this I used a rasp and a large toothed wood file. At the time I cursed as foam was every where but if I had thought what I was doing I would have recycled!

[Budliner]

QUOTE: Originally posted by DonCameron

Hey Budliner have you actually made ground foam in a blender??? What kind of foam do you use?

folgers

[Anonymous]

Hello Beernpolkaman,

There has been a couple of threads on this but I have made several large sacks of ground foam using both a hand meat grinder and a blender. The foam used is upholstery foam, and used and beaten up foam works a lot easier than new. The hand grinder will let you reduce it dry but the blender mix needs to be very wet to work. The blender gives a much more raggedy foam which I prefer but it takes about 3 times as long as you think will be enough. Yup, that means when you think you have it right and dry it out and colour it you won't be happy and you'll do the process over. Third time through it'll look just right. I use acrylics to colour mine and I mix it together in a large plastic bag. I also add several squirts of colour at the end of the mixing and let it dry with the random colours intermingled. It's not quick but you can make a lot and I go through this stuff by the kilo.

[cacole]

I read somewhere, too, that you can use florists' foam, the green blocks that are used in flower arrangements, and grind it up (or off) with a wood rasp. Florist foam is available in the crafts section of Wal-mart and other discount stores that handle artificial flowers.

[Paul W. Beverung]

Hi beerplokaman; I am the animations lead man for a major theme park. I've made alot of ground foam to use as pond scum in one of our ride themes. I do mean alot, maybe 40 gal each time. I use foam rubber open cell type from some of our old seat cushions. It has to be cut up into small pieces, about 1x1x2 inches. Put this in a blender, add water, about 2/3, and Rite dye, just a tad and blend. Blend as long as needed to get the size you want. This will take some experance. Drain off the water and dry. Screen the results through window screen. This will seperate the really small stuff. I glue the stuff to a piece of bubble wrap the size and shape of the pond. For some reason some of the really fine stuff has ended up on my layout. Fringe bennefit. Don't use your wife's blender, buy your own. It's cheaper than a devorce. I use 3 blenders at a time. It goes faster. I have wondered about using a meat grinder to pregrind the foam. Cutting the foam into pieces small enough for the blender is the most time consuming part.
Any way, have fun.
Paul

[dano99a]

Saw dust and green clothing color dye. I've done it and it seems to work fine, just gotta give it time to dry back out.

You can also use the dust from a belt sander when sanding pink or blue foam. Then dye that a color. or paint it.