Blue insulating Styrofoam, what glues, tapes to use/avoid

Cmdr.Bubbles · Post by **Cmdr.Bubbles** » Tue May 19, 2009 12:05 pm

I have a project at work (parade float) that was sort of thrown in my lap to complete) we have to be ready my Memorial day. The main structure of the float is two open books the body of the books is apprently to be made out of DOW Blue insulating Styrofoam. My job is to some how make this all work. We need to adhere posternoard and various papers to the foam board.

Any advice/suggestions would eb great. Also the cheaper the better.

Dr. Yo · Post by **Dr. Yo** » Tue May 19, 2009 12:18 pm

White glue or wood glue should work fine. Epoxy will also work.
Superglue ( cyanoacrelate ) will melt the stuff, as will regular
styrene cement. If time permits, I'd use the insul-foam as a
base, and build the 'book' out of paper mache'. Poster paints
would probably be the way to go for the finish.

Cmdr.Bubbles · Post by **Cmdr.Bubbles** » Tue May 19, 2009 1:03 pm

Dr. Yo wrote:White glue or wood glue should work fine. Epoxy will also work.
Superglue ( cyanoacrelate ) will melt the stuff, as will regular
styrene cement. If time permits, I'd use the insul-foam as a
base, and build the 'book' out of paper mache'. Poster paints
would probably be the way to go for the finish.

Thank you!

Kylwell · Post by **Kylwell** » Tue May 19, 2009 1:31 pm

Gorilla GLue works wonders with blue foam. Just be sure to clam it securely.

The Mad Klingon · Post by **The Mad Klingon** » Tue May 19, 2009 1:35 pm

After experimenting with several adhesives I discovered good old wood glue works just fine as does Gorilla Glue.

http://forum.fpkclub.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=39

I was surprised to learn that certain contact cements like goop also eat up the foam.

modelnutz · Post by **modelnutz** » Tue May 19, 2009 1:37 pm

Avoid any glues or paints with strong solvents.
IIRC...Dow ( blue or pink ) foams are made from foamed styrene.
You may have drying issues with white ( PVA ) glues...the air will have a hard time getting at the glue.

Super 77 may be your best bet.(spray a light coat on each surface for a strong bond)..however, the formula was changed a while back...making the glue a bit "hotter" and it could cause some issues if used too heavy.

Epoxies are a good alternative...but pricey if you need a lot.

Your best bet is to contact 3M and speak with a techie...or...visit their web site...I believe they have a glue selection wizard on their site.

Dr. Yo · Post by **Dr. Yo** » Tue May 19, 2009 1:46 pm

Modelnutz Mused

You may have drying issues with white ( PVA ) glues...the air will have a hard time getting at the glue.

Not as much as you might think, Ed. I've used it to laminate sections
a number of times and while it will take about half a day for a good set,
it does cure out ok. Honest!

Joseph C. Brown · Post by **Joseph C. Brown** » Tue May 19, 2009 2:15 pm

The key thing - for me at least - that when using any type of PVA / wood glue, use something, anything, to squeegee the glue to as thin a layer as is possible.

Otherwise, it WILL take forever to dry.

That's based on lots of personal experience with foam in a mildly humid part of the country; your milage just may well vary.

Chris Binnett · Post by **Chris Binnett** » Tue May 19, 2009 3:04 pm

Kylwell wrote:Gorilla GLue works wonders with blue foam. Just be sure to clam it securely.

I'll second that one. Once dry the glue is foam...not very puffy but sort of the same stuff. The seams become invisible, it shapes and sands like it's one piece, and it will never fail!

Chris "overkill everytime" Binnett

modelnutz · Post by **modelnutz** » Tue May 19, 2009 3:09 pm

Gorilla glue is urethane foam.

Styrofoam_Guy · Post by **Styrofoam_Guy** » Wed May 20, 2009 12:17 am

When using wood glue I would put a piece of newspaper in between to help it dry. The paper got in the way when carving the Styrofoam so I stopped sing that. It was good for gluing together large sheets ofStyrofoam.

There is chaulking glue specifically for the blue stuff but I never found it worked well. I have never tried the Gorilla glue but is sounds very promising.

For speed I mainly use hot glue but make sure the temperature is low or it may melt the Styrofoam. I just set my hot glue gun to the lower setting. Train guys have a low temp hot glue gun and glue made specifically for Styrofoam but I stick with the cheaper hardware store stuff.

Rogviler · Post by **Rogviler** » Wed May 20, 2009 12:49 am

And for the 40th suggestion...

For quick and dirty like a parade float I would personally use Liquid Nails. It doesn't eat the foam and it sticks quickly. Make sure you get the brown kind, as the clear is ridiculously flexible.

-Rog

Kylwell · Post by **Kylwell** » Wed May 20, 2009 10:04 am

Ah! Didn't think about Liquid Nails. Yeah, great stuff.

Lichtbringer · Post by **Lichtbringer** » Wed May 20, 2009 12:19 pm

Usually i use http://www.pattex.de/Pattex-Montage-Kra ... 493.0.html when making my dio-cores out of Styrofoam.

Before that i used Woodglue, but this stuff works much better, a lot faster and noticeable stronger.

No idea if it is available at your place, but if ..... use it.

Rogviler · Post by **Rogviler** » Wed May 20, 2009 12:57 pm

Lichtbringer wrote:Usually i use http://www.pattex.de/Pattex-Montage-Kra ... 493.0.html when making my dio-cores out of Styrofoam.

Before that i used Woodglue, but this stuff works much better, a lot faster and noticeable stronger.

No idea if it is available at your place, but if ..... use it.

Aside from the water-based part, that sounds a lot like Liquid Nails in the US...

-Rog

moffeaton · Post by **moffeaton** » Wed May 20, 2009 2:24 pm

I love that Liquid Nails comes in the long tubes, so you can use a caulking gun to apply - pow pow!

puddingwrestler · Post by **puddingwrestler** » Wed May 20, 2009 5:26 pm

Remember that it's heat sensitive, hot glue may sound like a temptingly fast way to go, but it melts the foam.

Antenociti · Post by **Antenociti** » Thu May 21, 2009 2:13 pm

Dr. Yo wrote:Modelnutz Mused
You may have drying issues with white ( PVA ) glues...the air will have a hard time getting at the glue.

Not as much as you might think, Ed. I've used it to laminate sections
a number of times and while it will take about half a day for a good set,
it does cure out ok. Honest!

I beg to differ:

styrofoam is air tight and pva is air-dry. If you try to join two sheets of styrofoam with pva it only ever dries where the air can get at it i.e. around the edges and a short way into the boards.

We have slit apart 4-5 year old sheets of styrofoam to find still-wet pva inside them.

its the same story for all air-dry glues, so forget any and all emulsions.

In fact most "adhesion" comes from surface-tension away from the edges and not actually being cemented together.

you need to use either a contact adhesive such as UHU Por or a specialist foam glue such as Foam-2-foam if you want a proper seal.

obviously if you are using expanded polystyrene then this wont apply as it isnt closed-cell like styrofoam and is therefore not airtight.

Dr. Yo · Post by **Dr. Yo** » Thu May 21, 2009 2:44 pm

What can I say? I've glued laminations of blue foam together with white
glue and had them hold together just fine. Now I will say that nothing I've done
has been much bigger than say eight inches square, so that may factor
into it.

Antenociti · Post by **Antenociti** » Sat May 23, 2009 7:25 am

yeah, the bigger the sheet the bigger the problem.

what we found was that the glue doesnt dry anything more than about 1cm in from the edge of the sheet, however the wet PVA inside that does a good job of keeping the sheets together via surface tension.

if you try to split the sheets apart the glue on the edges is enough to hold them, but a slip force, applied along the lgnethof the sheets, usually breaks that bond and the surface tension, resulting in the sheets sheering apart and exposing the un-set glue.

' should be said that we are usually using sheets of 600mmx600mm as the smallest though, but it holds true for any size due to how litle glue actually sets up on the edge.

Depends what you are using the styrofoam for though - i doubt it is a problem for most small pieces, but if you ever need to be sure that a sheet or piece if proerply glued across the whole surface area then i would recommend a contact adhesive like UHU Por.

we have seen somebody lean onto a large gaming display which had two sheets of styrofoam one on top of the other (and glued with PVA) - the top sheet sheered off completely from the bottom one and the gamer fell face down onto the gaming table.

but, yes, its really just something to be aware of rather than a "dont use it ever!" sort of thing.

Scott Hasty · Post by **Scott Hasty** » Sat May 23, 2009 9:20 am

Rogviler wrote:And for the 40th suggestion...

For quick and dirty like a parade float I would personally use Liquid Nails. It doesn't eat the foam and it sticks quickly. Make sure you get the brown kind, as the clear is ridiculously flexible.

-Rog

Agreed. I've built entire sets and set-pieces from the pink and blue foam and ALWAYS use liquid nails. About a two-hour working time and set within 24 hours (in optimal temperature and humidity conditions).

Cmdr.Bubbles · Post by **Cmdr.Bubbles** » Thu May 28, 2009 2:44 pm

Thanks for all the help. Everything went off without a hitch and it looks like this may become an annual thing

some pictures from the parade

Dr. Yo · Post by **Dr. Yo** » Thu May 28, 2009 3:12 pm

Whoa! Your Legion hall has a Nike Ajax parked out front?!? Double-plus
cool!

Glad things went well, Yeti.

Faefrost · Post by **Faefrost** » Sat May 30, 2009 1:23 am

The best Glue I ever found for working with the sheet foam is a little easy to find pruduct call liquid nails. Any hardware store will have it in tubes that you load into caulking guns. It blends prefectly.

It also firmly attaches the foam parts to the suport structure such as wood very well.