The Poet Creek Express - Foamie Hybrid

Canvas covered foamies (Thrifty Alternatives...)

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Re: The Poet Creek Express - A new Hybrid Foamie Design

Postby S. Heisley » Wed Feb 15, 2012 10:37 pm

KCStudly wrote:Thank you Sharon, with your input I was able to go back and fix the pic's in my last couple of posts.

Is this "_page" thing something to do with the new forum or did I just do something new/wrong? I Had no trouble putting up pics previously. :D



You're welcome and, yes, it has to do with the way the new forum works. (And, to think you had just learned the old forum way! HaHa!) Such is life....
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Re: The Poet Creek Express - A new Hybrid Foamie Design

Postby GPW » Thu Feb 16, 2012 5:50 am

KC, Great Drawing !!!! :thumbsup: 8) Leaves no doubt as to intent ...
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Re: The Poet Creek Express - A new Hybrid Foamie Design

Postby eaglesdare » Thu Feb 16, 2012 7:10 am

thanks sharon for helping us out! :wine:
i had to sleep on this one. but i went at it this morning and with toypushers help, i've got it now. sorry i couldn't help last night with the pic issues.
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Re: The Poet Creek Express - A new Hybrid Foamie Design

Postby GPW » Thu Feb 16, 2012 7:24 am

Now might be a good time to ask KC about his feelings on the use of “the Arch “ ... ???
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Re: The Poet Creek Express - A new Hybrid Foamie Design

Postby KCStudly » Thu Feb 16, 2012 4:38 pm

Re: The Arch. You caught me!!! 8)

I am a little concerned about fitting the vent fan, but have it on good authority from others here that the fan surrounds can take a slight curve with the proper bedding compound and a little gentle coaxing. If that doesn't look like it will work (when the time comes) then I can resort to a slightly raised flange to create a flat spot for the vent fan.

The main part of the roof has a 520 inch radius arc at the top of the walls. Partly for aesthetics, partly for the structural effect, and partly to promote good drainage off of the roof (I really have been paying attention to all the good ideas that people here have :FNP ). Given the doubled up spars at the vent opening, the structural nature of the cabinet frames, and combined with the "stressed skin" ceiling panel I am hopeful that it will not collapse with heavy snow loads in the event that it gets dumped on here in New England. :oops: :thumbdown: :?

We had a "once in XX years" early storm this year that dumped over 15 inches in mid October. :thumbdown:

Didn't do a structural analysis, tho :roll: It "looks about right" to me and is certainly not any, if very far, off from many others seen here.
Last edited by KCStudly on Sun May 20, 2012 4:21 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: The Poet Creek Express - A new Hybrid Foamie Design

Postby KCStudly » Thu Feb 16, 2012 5:51 pm

Well, I set out to put the floor construction details into my drawing package this evening, and right away I see that I misspoke in my very first thread :duh: :crazy: :whistle: (again.)

Seems that somewhere along the way I decided that it would be better (and stronger) to just make all of the foam 1-1/2" thick and I was reminded of that abruptly as soon as I "peeled back the top skins" on the floor and saw the 1x's in the middle of the fields standing on edge (oops). So I have made a minor edit to my first build post to correct that mistake.

I now remember that I wanted to try to keep the spacing between sub frame xmbrs a little wider by using the 1x's on edge rather than on the flat, but that meant that where the skin panels butt together there would be very little meat to attach the edges to (I was worried about staples pulling out of the edges of the luan) so at those two seams there are 2x2's under the butt joints. This added thickness in the floor also gives a bigger landing zone for the seal on the bottom edge of the hatch to land on when the hatch is closed.

Since my floor is 64" wide, and I wanted to keep both the floor frame xmbrs and the trailer frame xmbrs below fairly evenly spaced, the floor skins (top & btm) are made up of three panels each. Each panel will have to be cross cut and ripped, which kinda sucks, but that is what the structure dictates and, having no experience with joining ply this thin, is what I am comfortable with. I am assuming that the drops will be put to use in cabinetry (we'll see). Another good reason to use cheap luan instead of something more expensive!

And now back to work on the details!!! Seems like it will be worth making these detailed drawings after all; so many ideas I can't even keep my own build straight without a road map :CC :laughter: :laughing1:

And now it comes back to me that the bulkhead wall is still only 3/4", so there will be some 3/4" foam purchased after all.
I guess this is just going to be one of the pitfalls of doing the design in one place and sometimes posting info from another (that and my gray cells not getting any younger).

Did I mention that I have been working on this for a very long time, with several iterations of various details? :DOH2:
Last edited by KCStudly on Sat Mar 24, 2012 10:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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My Build: The Poet Creek Express Hybrid Foamie

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Engineering the TLAR way - "That Looks About Right"
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Re: The Poet Creek Express - A new Hybrid Foamie Design

Postby GPW » Thu Feb 16, 2012 8:44 pm

You "could' use 1.5" thick for the bulkhead , we won't tell.... :o thicker is stronger eh? Seems like in a Foamie we'd want to use every piece to provide some sort of structural advantage (internal bracing)aside from the utilitarian purpose... but you know ... :thinking:
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Re: The Poet Creek Express - A new Hybrid Foamie Design

Postby KCStudly » Fri Feb 17, 2012 11:03 pm

Re: making the bulkhead thicker.

Er, no thanks. Not worth the trouble of changing everything I've already modeled in the galley, and don't want to lose any of the extra "tucking" space for the mattress on the cabin side. Besides, the 3/4 foam with wooden frame and skins will be plenty strong enough for the bulkhead because the loads are primarily in compression at the edges, or in shear at the skin panel glue bonds, not bending along the panel axis (so thickness here doesn't really add as much as you might think). There will be 3/4 foam in the dividing panels under the galley counter, too, so it's no big deal to buy a sheet or two. Still haven't ruled out using two layers of 3/4 foam for the roof...make it easier to form the curve, perhaps w/o the need for all of those messy kerfs. (We need a smilie for pink and blue foam dust!)

In another thread someone mentioned using a jig saw w/ the saw teeth ground back into a knife blade. That has my interest. I have always heard that an electric carving knife would work, but thought that would be more for the spongy types of foam and for free form carving, not so much slicing/parting/slab work on rigid. The family home (that I took over in my teens when Mom moved out, then passed to my sister when she moved back form Callie and I got married/moved out) has a bunch of stuff my mom left behind, including a seldom used elec. carving knife. Mom said I was welcome to it, so now it is just a matter of getting my sister to find it and pass it on to me to give it a try.

I do have a little bit of hot knife experience. Started to build an elec. powered foamie RC glider of my own design. Built a simple knife using inconel wire and a battery charger to cut the wings, guided by aluminum flashing rib templates pinned into the wing roots and tips. It didn't have any method to hold tension as the wire heated up, and there was no control over the current (except 6 or 12v), so on the second wing I had some dragging and a pretty good sized low spot...but a little light weight plaster spackle took care of that. Never finished or flew it, but had fun working on it as a hobby interest. Have a few balsa & tissue rubber powered free flight planes under my belt over the years. Every once in a great while I get the aero bug. :D

And now a build update, I have started to build!!! Yippeee! :P :P :woohoo: :wakka wakka: :tipsy:

Well, so far all I have done is cut out the little steel end caps for the various trailer frame ends, but I wanted to have them for tomorrow when... I start cutting steel and building the trailer. Yippeee!!! :pictures: soon. The piece of scrap steel I had for the little caps was easier to rip up on the large vertical bandsaw at work, than it would be to do at Karl's shop. He's got cut off saw, very large Marvel vertical band, plasma cutter, abrassive cut off wheels, etc., etc. His little cut off band saw can even be converted into a vertical saw with small table, but the 16 inch saw at work has a nice big cast table and a rip fence attachment, so that's what I did after work today. That and a little more detailing on the floor assembly drawings. Have to work out a few details in the "glue & screw" schedule to make sure that any fasteners holding the floor subframe together don't interfere with the later attachment of the walls. Had thought about using plate (biscuit) joinery for the floor frame, but that has some down sides to it, too. I think I can squeeze all of the screws in and have them be happy together, but it will take careful and accurate layout. Complicating matters slightly is the fact that the side rails of the floor subframe will be 1x on edge, so the fasteners on the insides holding the walls to the floor will have to be strategically located to land in the larger 2x floor xmbrs and the corner blocks where the floor anchors to the trailer frame. The screws on the outside of the wall will go through the base plate of the wall and into the 1x edging using a Kregg, so those can be located along the rails anywhere along their length. So for the narrow 1x on edge floor xmbrs I can screw straight through the centers from the outside, but on the 2x floor xmbrs I will place the screws holding the rim rails on towards the front half of these xmbrs, and the screws on the inside of the walls will be aimed down into the back halves of these larger targets. Seems like a lot of details, and potential error to save a little bit of weight, but everything is a compromise. I want the full perimeter steel frame that is tough enough to bottom out on a rock or three, but will try to win back that non-ultra light weight feature by being crafty in other areas. Planning and details I got covered!! :R (light weight, probably not so much.)

On a side note, I have been doing a lot of stainless steel tube welding at work this week (I get to do the design work and build the systems) and today I had some awsome beads...had to stop and take a pic of the lovley "row of nickels", thought I would use it as a teaser for you all for the fab work to come, I was so impressed with myself. For our sanitary systems (stainless steel food grade stuff) we butt the tubes and tube fittings, use a back purge, and do a full penetration fuse with no filler...comes out as nice on the inside as it does on the out..., but I forgot to put the somewhat blurry pic on my stick drive for to upload here this evening...so I guess it didn't really happen. (drat) :oops:
Last edited by KCStudly on Fri Jan 18, 2013 11:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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My Build: The Poet Creek Express Hybrid Foamie

Poet Creek Or Bust
Engineering the TLAR way - "That Looks About Right"
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Re: The Poet Creek Express - You want pics? We got pics!

Postby KCStudly » Sat Feb 18, 2012 9:24 pm

Up bright and early (for a weekend, that is), had a bowl of outmeal and a cuppa, and off we go.

Snapped a pic of my boat cover as reference. Everything above the gunwale is temporary 2x wood frame. There is a much lower peak, underneath, that I use in the summer and can whip in and out by hand. In the winter I build up on that summer frame with an erector set of 2x3's and 4s and use a larger/heavier tarp.
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Took some pics to wow you along the way. Lot of foam.
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Lots more foam; the dark square down in front at the lower left of the pile is a full size fork truck!
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That's a lot of foam! Here's where they make it.
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Stopped here for trailer coupler ($40) and tongue jack ($25, w/ tx $70 total, forgot to take pics of those).
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Notice the white blocks? See the two trailers full further down the row? They're 1x1x1-1/2 ft blocks of beaded foam in plastic bags that the trailer maker uses to separate the stacked trailers in transport. They had a bunch of them. I asked and the cashier said that the shipper takes them back when they deliver the next load. :thinking:

Fab Mecca, otherwise known as Metal Werks, LLC, a small custom fab shop owned and operated by Karl Hamm.
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Inside Fab Mecca.
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After using the powered chainfalls on overhead trollies to move some stuff in the wall rack, we lifted my steel down to where I could get to it. That's when I started looking at the plans and realized that I had bought 2 x 2 x 1/8 angle instead of the 1-1/2 x 1-1/2 that I had modeled. Doh! :duh:
Well, Karl is a true friend. He has supported and encouraged me since I started to think and talk about this project. When I was building my car hauling trailer (We interrupt your normally scheduled program for a little side trip down Kev's trailer lane...)

My "brand new never used home built car trailer"...slightly neglected...might use for hauling pumpkin catapult components in the future.
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Very happy with the way I designed and built the fender mount nerf bar/side steps.
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In the lead pic you can just see the cleat on the rear of the trailer. The custom formed clip on the tops of the ramps drops into the cleat and the ramps can be positioned anywhere along the back of the trailer.
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And a shot of the tongue area just to show the quality of my work (ignore the leaves, branches and mildew).
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Karl insisted that I complete that build at his shop (back before the barn when he was still working out of his 3-season front porch) and would go up there every Wednesday evening and many weekends until it was done. He provided all of the consummables (weld wire, grinding/sanding discs, electricity, use of the hall, etc. ...even the POR 15 paint). Man it is good to have friends. I would bring a few beers and comradery.

(And now back to your regularly scheduled build program...in the next post.)
Last edited by KCStudly on Mon Dec 24, 2012 11:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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My Build: The Poet Creek Express Hybrid Foamie

Poet Creek Or Bust
Engineering the TLAR way - "That Looks About Right"
TnTTT ORIGINAL 200A LANTERN CLUB = "The 200A Gang"
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Re: The Poet Creek Express - Building The Trailer

Postby KCStudly » Sat Feb 18, 2012 10:19 pm

So Karl came to the rescue with 14 ft of the smaller angle out of his rack, and we swapped, my 2x2 for his 1-1/2 x 1-1/2. (I went back and edited my earlier post where I described the trailer design...nice plans, they work better when you use them! :? )

And I have a confession to make. After we ordered the steel the other day and decided to switch the rear xmbr to use the (heavier) drop from the 3/16 thk SQ TB, I started adding things up and realized that there wasn't going to be enough of that to make the 60 inch length required. :duh: Even though the tube came in 24 ft lengths instead of 20s. :duh: :duh:

Plan B was to butt weld a short length that I scrounged to one of the longer drops in order to make the 60 inches. Would take a little work to make backer bars, weld prep, drill and rosette weld in the backers, align, clamp and weld (hope that it stayed straight), etc. Nope. Karl to the rescue again. He had a long length of 2x2x1/8 in the rack that he talked me into using 5 ft of, in trade for my drop pieces. Man it is good to have friends!!!

Did someone mention clamps? We got clamps.
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On to the cut off saw, squaring the end of the angle stock.
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Intermediate xmbrs cut to length. (Pics out of order, mounting clips cut to length in background.)
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Detail of mounting clips cut to length. (A little excited to be building? Yup. Lots of pics? Yup.)
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The Bader is your friend (say - Bay-der).
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Deburring the clips (posed photo, you would actually be using a little further down on the wheel, and I wear gloves).
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The iron worker is a Manly Tool. In a production shop time is money and drilling a bunch of holes takes time. Powerful hydraulics are faster!
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Set up an alignment fixture, set the depth of travel so that the arbor does not crush the little flange of the little itty bitty piece of angle steel, step on the pedal, and Bob's your uncle, you have a hole!
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A close up. Put the piece in the alignment fixture (shown), use the stripper (the horse shoe piece of flatbar w/ handle that you can see part of to the right) to hold the piece in the alignment fixture (I'm not putting my finger in there :no: :O :no: )
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Then step on the pedal, the pleasant whirrr of the hydraulic pump and pop goes the weasel. Hold the pedal down while you position the hand held stripper (because the little itty bitty piece is too small for the standard fixed stripper), lift off the pedal and the stripper "strips" the piece off of the punch on the up stroke (shown). Takes about 5 seconds per part. Miss with the stripper and the piece gets mangled, or worse, you break a punch.
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The slugs pop out into this little catch can rightcheer. These can come in quite handy if you are welding up a bunch of holes, say if you are smoothing the frame on a custom hot rod or something.
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(Back in a jiffy with more.)
Last edited by KCStudly on Sun Mar 11, 2012 3:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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My Build: The Poet Creek Express Hybrid Foamie

Poet Creek Or Bust
Engineering the TLAR way - "That Looks About Right"
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Re: The Poet Creek Express - A new Hybrid Foamie Design

Postby KCStudly » Sat Feb 18, 2012 11:00 pm

Where were we? Ah yes...

The longer pieces are a little different, so I laid out and prick punched the intermediate xmbrs.
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Change the alignment fixture around to a fence, place the long angle against fence, unlatch the punch arbor from the hydraulic ram, lower the punch pin point into the prick punch mark, step on the pedal and the ram catches up to the punch, pop goes Bob's your uncle, hold the pedal down, latch the punch arbor to the ram head, lift the pedal, and the std stripper does the rest. Both xmbrs took less than 3 minutes to punch 8 holes.
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On to the main frame rails. Cutting to length. (Actually 3 cuts: first piece rough cut, second piece cut to length, 3rd square off the mushroomed end of the first piece by cutting to final length. Less moving the big pieces around that way since I had already laid the whole stick up into the saw and there was not enough run out to nip the end off first.)
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Close up of the saw at work. Ho hum.
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Actually, it's a very nice precision little Italian made saw (albeit a little used at this point...lots of miles under this one). Both the intermediate xmbrs and main rails (with careful attention to measuring and positioning in the saw) came out perfectly square and exactly equal to each other in length. Huzzah! :applause:

So I didn't really check the clock, but I had arrived at Fab Mecca at about 10:15am, got settled in and did all of this by about lunch time. The rest of the afternoon, up until about 5pm was spent on detailing out the main rails, and yes the devil is in the details. You will see that it was a lot of work and time for a small feature, but it's kind of like custom rims on a nice car. They totally "make it". So here we go...

Setting up a piece of scrap to act as a guide for an abrasive plunge cut.
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Posed photo of using cutoff wheel in 4 inch grinder to make plunge cut (hard to take pictures with gloves, face shield, ear muffs, sparks flying, etc.).
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Yes there is no guard on that grinder. Not my tool, I am a guest, years of experience, don't try this at home. Nuff said.

The resulting plunge just through the one wall.
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Nip off a bit with a plunge cut through the ends.
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Back in a jiff.
Last edited by KCStudly on Sun Feb 19, 2012 12:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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My Build: The Poet Creek Express Hybrid Foamie

Poet Creek Or Bust
Engineering the TLAR way - "That Looks About Right"
TnTTT ORIGINAL 200A LANTERN CLUB = "The 200A Gang"
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Re: The Poet Creek Express - A new Hybrid Foamie Design

Postby KCStudly » Sat Feb 18, 2012 11:48 pm

Here I am!

Damn, lost this post to a preview failure, error message 502 "expired". Starting over now.

Back to the saw with a little piece of 1-1/4 nominal pipe. We didn't have any scraps of true 1-1/2 OD (3/4 radius) steel tubing so I cheated and used 1-1/4 Pipe (1-5/8 OD). Fudged it. Note the little piece of 2 inch wide sheet in the other end of the saw vise that allowed me to clamp such a small work piece off center.
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Setting up the second cut using a square and tape to get 3/4 inch (checked both ends so that it would be sqaure).
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Made another cut to make the drop from the second cut match the first, and here we have two little quarter round filler pieces.
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Scribe the inside and grind corners round to fit flush in the recess cut on the side, and proud by the thickness of the cap (to come) on the end.
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Blurry weld close up (trust me).
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Wait for it. Wait for it... Ta dah, nice little "row of nickels" TIG weld bead. They all looked like this. :D :thumbsup: :ok: :eyebrows:
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A little blending with the flap wheel and, "I'm ready for my close up, Mr. DeMille".
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Finished up the day by capping and blending the back ends of the main rails.
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Back home to download pics, resize, upload, label, post, yadda yadda, you know the drill.

Hope you enjoy the orgy of pics. Tomorrow I plan on cutting the front and rear xmbrs and perhaps weld the main section of the frame. I had kind of guessed on the coupler and jack location therein, for the model, and was a little afraid that the little front crossmember holding the tongue rails together at the front could be an issue...and it is, so I will have to rework the details a bit before I cut anything there. Waffling a bit and still considering the off road style swivel coupling.

Manana.
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My Build: The Poet Creek Express Hybrid Foamie

Poet Creek Or Bust
Engineering the TLAR way - "That Looks About Right"
TnTTT ORIGINAL 200A LANTERN CLUB = "The 200A Gang"
Green Lantern Corpsmen
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Re: The Poet Creek Express - A new Hybrid Foamie Design

Postby GPW » Sun Feb 19, 2012 6:34 am

So Nice to have access to the right tools , and the skills to use them !!! Most Excellent metalwork KC !!! 8) 8) 8)

Saw the pics of that Foam yard , started to salivate like Pavlov’s dog ... :o Think of what we could do with all that Foam , or just one BIG block of it ... :thinking:
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Re: The Poet Creek Express - A new Hybrid Foamie Design

Postby eaglesdare » Sun Feb 19, 2012 7:29 am

i think its funny how us foamlings get excited over a pic of foam! but that sure is a lot of it.
when we picked up my trailer, i noticed that big block of beaded foam also. i just figured it was put there locally, guess not. i did not even ask if i could take that one.
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Re: The Poet Creek Express - A new Hybrid Foamie Design

Postby GPW » Sun Feb 19, 2012 9:10 am

Beaded foam is very useful too , don’t discount it because it’s different ... snag it, Tag it , and bag it ... I never turn down a chance to acquire Foam ... any kind ... Ask next time , sometimes it’s FREE... Just in their way and they want to be shot of it ... ;)
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