Can I Drill Holes in Foam?
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73 Posts
Do you want to drill the hole up through the two halves along the glue line? I do not understand why it is too late to drill holes intro foam.
Joe
Joe
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378 Posts
I've drilled small holes into foam with a hand drill. The holes wont' be perfect, but they'll work. Try on some scrap pieces first. What size hole? Smaller holes work better... bigger holes tear up the material more.
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413 Posts
The PVC I have is leftover .5" from my fence.
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237 Posts
How deep do you want to bore, and what size hole?
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413 Posts
About 6 inches deep for a .5" PVC pipe.
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1,118 Posts
If you are very patient you could take a 3/4" hole saw and drill out a little plug out .... remove it from the hole saw and do it again until you can't reach any farther with the hole saw. Usually it takes 17 seconds to cut the hole and 5 min to clear it from the hole saw, it can be frustrating to use them for that reason.
The suggestion to heat a pipe and melt it isn't a bad one. If you don't have a piece of metal pipe the right size (or at all) you could use a piece of very stiff copper wire and a small torch to make a bad approximation of a hot knife. I would heat the wire, draw a shallow circle in the foam, reheat and draw deeper circles each time.
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566 Posts
Use either a masonry or wood-spade drill bit. I used a 12" long masonry drill bit for my tombstones. See original post with photos here: Static: - Tombstones - store bought mod ?'s
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1,571 Posts
Dont have specific experience, but if you drilled a hole about 3/4's of the size needed (and vacuumed out detritus, using a small nozzle), you could just push your pipe in and it would fit snugly. You can drill foam, it's just messy and imprecise.
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364 Posts
I never had a problem drilling into that foam with a masonry bit. Wood bits tear it up.
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1,910 Posts
Hubby used a hanger to poke holes in bottom of his tombstones. The holes were small & it worked great
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602 Posts
I would say yes...i would use a long bit and maybe a 2x4 as a guide so you knew you were going in straight. How deep are you going?
Can Styrofoam tolerate Guerilla Glue? If so, I'd use the spade bit for wood that matches the outside diameter of the pipe, and then glue the pipe in with the glue mentioned. The glue expands and will fill in any gaps.
You will never get the pipe back out again, though.
You will never get the pipe back out again, though.
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566 Posts
I keep saying just use a masonry drill bit. Drills thru like butter, no splitting or cracking the foam. I made 30+ this way. Just oversize the drill bit a little to allow the PVC to slide in easily.
![Wood Handheld power drill Tool Chainsaw Rotary tool]()
![Cuisine Ingredient Wood Food Event]()
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64 Posts
Cut small teeth into the end of your PVC and use it to make a hole. Back out regularly to clean out the foam.
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14,917 Posts
If you have a piece of copper pipe you can do what this guy did to sharpen the edge of it and use it to twist/cut into the foam.
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25 Posts
I agree a masonry bit would be your path of least resistance to solving your issue. However; I found this site where a maker sharpened pvc pipes to make hand drills that drill super clean holes in multiple kinds of foam.
davidneat.wordpress.com
Would be handy to have a few of these kicking around if you work with foam a lot. Makes me want to build something full of holes just so I could try this. 
Cutting smooth holes in foam
I chanced upon this method of making almost perfect holes in rigid foam after I was asked about the best way to do the same in cake .. making holes to take tube supports between storeys of a weddin…
davidneat.wordpress.com
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