Thread: New work

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I have recently returned to an old job making and designing things for mini-golf coarse , for people who say white foam is hard to use I hope this will show that it is not, check out the website at http://www.artattackfx.com/ heres one pic of a cool Trex and its blacklight too how cool is that

You have to put into perspective the different types of white EPS foam that people are using. For the most part, many here are using the white EPS foam sheathing (insulation) which is much lower density (and contains more voids, which is better for insulation R values. Air is after all, one of the best insulators), than that which is used for say, dock bumpers, packing heavy equipment for shipping, foam/hardcoat building construction, and the blocks you are using for carving such works. I have a block of such that I used for the base of my St. Francis monument, and it was significantly easier to work with, than the sheething I used to make my newest celtic cross. The aforementioned voids being one reason, the blocks having much smaller pellets of foam being another.

Based on the type that the majority are using, I'd have to agree with them. But, based on what you are using...I can agree with you too. However, you have to remember that what you work with is only available thorough commercial suppliers (commercial construction suppliers do have the higher quality dense styrofoam also, often used as a base material for stucco and various other hard coats. In case anyone is wondering). That, unfortunately isn't something home improvement chains offer. Hence most only think of EPS styrofoam as being inferior to XPS (extruded polystyrene- Owens Corning Foamular or Dow SIS) foam for detailed carving. From their perspective, they are right. But from yours, you are right in that with high density EPS, you can get great detail. Either way, neither are better than XPS foam for detail, which has superior density to the EPS types. Hence making it the best choice overall for most home haunt projects.

this foam is same density as the home improvement white foam, I use it in most everything I make , I have heard that some people cannot get the white foam in the US, just showing what can be done and the cool things I get to build now as well, Just have heard lots of questions about the foam I use lately so wanted to show results , and detail that can be achieved with this type of foam

It (EPS foam) can be gotten stateside, if one only knows where to look. I have to get some more myself, but if you wouldn't mind posting a pic of what you are using. I can show you what they are getting here in the home improvement stores. It is garbage compared to what I get from commercial contractor supply companies. However, it can be worked with. It's just much more time consuming to get the same results.

Example: One that I'm weathering right now, EPS foam sheathing that came from Lowes (Sunday supply run when my normal source is closed). It took 6 heavy coats to fill in the voids and get rid of the pinholes. In retrospect, I should've just hard coated it in order to save time & materials. 2nd pic is a close up of that particular foam. Notice the large diameter pellets, and huge amount of voids between them? I'll go to my storage tomorrow and bring back one of my stones that has a base made of the higher density EPS so the difference can be seen. The latter is I'm quite certain what you are using (and the type of EPS I prefer to use too). That type this celtic cross was made of, has all of the aforementioned negatives...plus it has a bad tendency to leave loads of flashing on the edges of cuts. That wouldn't be an issue with a hotwire cutter ofc. But with any type of milling tools, yeah. Huge problem.