Heat Bending Foam ...

[atahoekid]

OMG!!!! The answer is that simple?!?! If I knew that in advance, the Road Foamie might look A LOT different... I need the details... Please...

[RAYVILLIAN]

Well that was only 1/2 inch foam and I've never tried it with the thicker stuff, but that is actually a 6" bend and it didn't break. Seems that the cloth holds the surface tension and keeps it from cracking.

Gary

[Mrs Rayvillian]

Trudy said breakfast was ready so had to go eat. I seem to remember that I tried that when I was first experimenting with paint and bed sheets so that was probably done with tightbond primer and bed sheets. Like i said I've never tried it with thicker foam but I'd think that you couldn't get that much bend with the thicker stuff but you might get enough for a good curve.

gary

[GPW]

A 3’ radius wouldn’t be asking too much , and would solve a lot of problems making trailer noses and rear curved hatches ... Just to do that alone would be really SUPER ...
My friend at the guitar factory mentioned heat blankets again .... the commercial ones that get hot enough to do the job ... Only problem is they’re a bit too expensive for the casual foamie builder (like us) , I just want something that we can do at home ... affordably too ... and NOT make a big mess...

Now if I were doing this commercially , I’d surely build full size bending /cooling forms forms , acquire the foam in the proper sizes and bend up all the parts at once, using the heat blankets ... or something similar and easy ...
That would only work if you were making a good many Foamy trailers ... which could be a good business if done right ... A mobile “cottage industry” ...

[atahoekid]

It appears that primer,which as GPW has mentioned is essentially a latex glue and bedsheets or in our cases canvas allows us to heat foam and bend it without kerfing it or breaking it. The question is how to heat it????? If you could do it reliably, I would think that using a heat gun would be the easiest to do...

[jgraham698]

I'm new to the forum and this is my first post. I have some work experience steam bending wood and it
occurred to me that a compression strap as sometimes used for that would work for foam bending. My
teenage children helped me post a youtube video titled "how to bend styrofoam with a compression strap"
back in February that shows my first experiments. I am bending without heat. The foam bends well but
requires something glued to the inner surface to hold shape. I'll stop here and see if I can post this. I 'm
not much good with computers.

[GPW]

Something like this ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92m2G3jbHYI

[Jst83]

Something like this ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92m2G3jbHYI

That was white foam bent how would the pink stuff work not sure of the proper names

[jgraham698]

Thanks for watching my video. The foam used was 1" insulation from Lowe's. The first piece is a 1 1/2
Thick by 1 wide piece and the last piece bent was a food tray. My strap materials were aluminum
flashing, luan and vinyl sheet. The expanded foam bent much easier than expected and my choices of
straps were overkill. Poster board would have worked. I have started a trailer build and got my roof made.
I'm doing a 5' wide design so I made a form half that and made two pieces each with luan interior glued
to 2" extruded polystyrene. I used luan for my strap. For the thicker, more rigid xps foam I had to
strengthen my end blocks and use ratcheting cargo straps to get the bend. I epoxied the halves together
and covered the top with epoxy and polyester fleece material from JoAnne fabrics. Waiting for warmer
weather to continue. I'm satisfied with my results so far but would do things different if I could start over.
2" eps foam bends so much easier and while it's not as good as xps I think it's probably good enough and
I found a source for 5' wide by up to 12' long esp foam any thickness. I would try to find a way to bend
like I did in the video without a form and use a strap that would be the outside finished surface. I need to
move ahead with other parts of my build for now, hopefully some of you can try this and make advances?

[bespurcell]

Can't wait to see pics of your trailer.

[WizardOfOdds]

Can't wait to see pics of your trailer.

Me too! Even if you only have parts done at this point.