Building models with foam
 

Just a note to all the new modelers,
building models with the three types of foam available at home improvement stores is possible.

After you master the flying portion of the hobby and start designing your own models you might want to look into using foam as a building medium. It's cheaper, the models go together faster, and damage after crashes are normally clean breaks making repairs easy.:D

Check out the book "Building with foam" Here is the link to the book information.

http://home.att.net/~parkflyerplastics

Have fun and welcome to the hobby.

RE: Building models with foam
 

Have you flown you own foam designed <or any faom plane u built> yet? How does it fly may be interesting next project for me:D!

RE: Building models with foam
 

I've been building with foam for a couple of years now. Not park flyers either, we're talking Combat!

And yes, I find working with foam fast and easy. And yes, I've done a few of my own designs including one I've kitted for a few guys who have wanted one. (note, I'm not in the kitting buisness, some guys asked if they could get one, so I made a few extra and sold them at cost). I have the building instuctions for my Rapier design posted on www.MidAtlanticCombat.com if you're curious.

RE: Building models with foam
 

I saw someone selling wire on ebay to cut foam wings. I would like to know how to do this. Is there a website that has this info?

RE: Building models with foam
 

Making a foam cutting setup is really easy, and not at all high tech.

First off, you don't need special wire. I use a stainless steel wire. I got it by going to home depot and getting some twisted stainless cable. I then clamped one end in to a vice and the other in a drill and unwound the cable. Each strand works well enough for me, and you can't beat the price.

Bows can be made out of just about anything. scrap wood, pvc, metal parts, combinations of all of those, whatever.

The powersupply is the trickiest. Some guys just use a 12v battery charger hooked dirctly to the wire. Works, but the biggest problem is that you don't get much control over the wire heat. This might or might not be an issue for you. I use a hardware store dimmer hooked up to a radio shack 24v transformer, giving me a variable power output. I origionally used a doorbell transformer from home depot, and it worked fine for most cutting.

There are lots of sites, and probibly more than a few threads on RCU with more details. The key thing is to not be afraid to experiment. The worst thing that happens is that you waste a few bucks in foam.