Thrifty Alternatives ..Building Foam Campers

[KCStudly]

For damage from road hazards or environment (debris kicked up, tree branch, fender bender, etc.;
Scrap of canvas folded up
Steak knife
Razor knife
Scissors
Bottle of TB2
Partial roll of heavy aluminum foil adhesive backed tape or regular duct tape (HVAC type stuff... good for temporarily patching any minor cuts in the canvas)
Can of GS
Small sanding block with 100 grit paper
One of those new squeeze style tubes of window caulk

Various other hand tools and recovery gear would be carried, but not specific to foamie related repairs; screw drivers, assorted hand wrenches, straps, etc.

I guess if you can't fix it with that you are in much more serious condition than can be fixed out on the road, but I bet you could still drag it home to fix it!

[GPW]

Thanks KC, That’ll do it !!!

[WoodSmith]

Be careful assuming that a can of great stuff will be any good at all after being stored for any period of time. Even if unopened, it has a fairly short shelf life.

Maybe it gets put on the list of stuff to buy on your way out.

-beer ballast
-ice
-food
-can of great stuff.

[Wolffarmer]

Just had a thought. I wonder what a can of GS would do in a big fire? And I have a bunch of trash piled up waiting for the right conditions.

[GPW]

Guys , I had a can of great stuff a year old and used it .... worked fine .... Maybe I was just lucky ...

[Wolffarmer]

I still think a can in a fire is a worthy experimant.

[GPW]

Perhaps NOT !!!

[mikeschn]

At the orange box today we asked if there was a smaller size of the Great Stuff. They said no...

They also agreed that it's pretty much a one time use and throw the rest away.

So we are making notes of all the holes we want to fill before we snip the tip of the Great Stuff!

Mike...

[GPW]

In reality we used Great Stuff , stuck a chopstick in the tube and a month later used the rest ... Maybe just Lucky ...

[KCStudly]

As WW pointed out, acetone can be used to clean the applicator straw and valve/nozzle tip, but I have had mixed results with that, too. After the acetone dries a film of residue can stay in the straw, which can be poked out with a piece of 1/16 dia TIG welding wire. I also suspect that the valve seal can have minute leakage tending to seal the valve back up again (when I went to reuse a previously cleaned can it would not spray until cleaned again and probed gently with the welding wire to break up the film while being soaked with acetone). But then again, I have had cans that wouldn't give it up even after cleaning twice, both after the previous use and before the next attempted use.

It's frustrating to put all of that effort into cleaning the dam things only to be denied in the end.

Karl (my shop owner) had several old, but unused cans that were past their expire dates. He offered them to me to use and so far they have had about a 1/3 success rate (i.e. 1 out of 3 cans seemed like new, while the others gave nothing up... didn't bother trying to clean those nozzles).

I think the extra size cans are just a bad marketing ploy, make the customer think they are getting more for the price, but deny them the use of even more product.

Maybe in new home construction where you are going thru a building all at once and emptying can after can it isn't such a big cost issue, but for us hobbyist it can be quite frustrating to be so wasteful.

[dales133]

I too have had mixed results cleaning them out over the years but found if you pull the straw out imediatly after use and blow air through it and the valve piece that goes in the can it sometimes works
Here theres a product called sika boom thats the same and they sell a reusable gun for the cans to go in and cans of presurised acetone to clean them.
You can also get extra nozles and staws in 3 packs...maybe they have them there.
Id happily post some of tbe xtra aplicators over if anyone needs them

[GPW]

Sorry to deviate from the immediate topic, but an old friend contacted me , he’s retiring and was looking to buy a small travel trailer. Asking for recommendations , I couldn’t help but go into my spiel about “the horrors of commercial trailers" ... He especially indicated he wanted something that didn’t leak ... but he didn’t want to get involved in a complicated build ... You can guess where this is going huh ?

[Ned B]

So point him at the foamstream, trailer then thread

[GPW]

Ned , we talked for a while and he ended up saying he had a cargo trailer in the barn that wasn’t being used , so i sent him to the cargo trailer section to view the possibilities ...

[Ned B]

That'll work! Cargo trailer folks are Ttt enthusiasts too