Would greatly appreciate anyone who can tell me how to grind up foam. Have tried a blender, scissors and paper cutter. Spraying the fine particles just blows them away, so how is a good way to color them.
Thanks
Colvid
Are you trying to save a few bucks by making your own? I don’t think anyone here has bothered to do that. Buying several bags of various ground foam can get expensive, but a little goes a long way.
Try a belt sander or other mechanical sander with different grits. You may be able to color them with fabric dye before grinding. It will make a hellacious mess, so you should have some sort of pan or tray to catch the foam dust. Wear a dusk mask if you decide to use my insane suggestion.
Dyed saw dust was used in the dark-ages of model railroading, as was zip texturing. Those would be the other low budget methods.
P.S. [#welcome] to M.R. Forums
Covid,
I guess the first question on everyone’s my mind is why do you want to grind it up?
Tom
check this out: http://www.2guyzandsumtrains.com/Content/pa=showpage/pid=10.html just be sure your wife isn’t home when you do this to her blender…chuck [:D]
A much better idea Chuck. And safer too. One thing though. The author says he garbage picked old couch cushions. My warning would be to smell it before you bring it home. It may be the reason it got thrown out. [xx(]
I posted a “how I did” it on my website that is similar to the link provided above. It is fairly easy to do but does take some experimenting to get the colors and texture you want. Here is the link.
http://www.dansresincasting.com/Ground%20foam.htm
Rmember!!! DO NOT USE A GOOD BLENDER. It won’t be a good one when you are done.
Dan Pikulski
www.DansResinCasting.com
WELLLLLLLL!!! Let’s have a little chat here![:D][:D][:D] I’m doing the same thing with GREAT results!!! First, you have to know about foam…There’s open cell and closed cell.
Open cell is like what a kitchen chair pad would have in it. (soft and spongey with visable little cells in it.) This will make good “coarse” ground foam.
Then there’s closed cell-This is the stuff florists use to stick artificial plants in. When ground up, turns into a finner “powder” like texture for a finer grade of foam.
There is a medium grade of foam that is like GREAT STUFF foam insulation spray after it has dried.(some parts of car seats have this kind of foam) This is good for a medium grade foam.
NOW! If you followed that…Your ready for the next step…GRINDING!!!
You need a heavy duty food processor with semi fine blades. Feed the foam into the FP and experiment with the differant textures you get from the differant foams and differant FP blades.(This takes a little practice and WATCH YOUR FINGERES!!!)
Use cheap craft paint from a craft store to color the foam as it is turning in the FP.(again, somthing that takes practice.) Spread the colored foam onto a peice of newspaper to dry when finished. If the dried foam is still too coarse, you can run it back through the FP and grind it up finner.
This would take me two minutes to show you if you were in my garage.It’s REALLY EZ!.
You can spend $5 and with a little bit of talent make $300 worth of foam.
I have bags of foam I’ve made that I won’t use and would love to GIVE them to someone for their feedback.
If you have any questions , E-mail me and ask. I’ll help you out any way I can.
Ok Lothar, I’ll bite! [:D]
I’ve got some free space on my new modules to experiment with, and after years of being a “ground foam” junkie, I’ll give you an honest opinion back. Check my personal page (below) you will see I’ve used quite a bit over the years.
Email me, we can work out the details!
Making your own ground foam takes a lot of time effectively per the amount that you produce.
Also using old car seat foam is not the type to use as stated (it breaks down and will form a goo if given enough time).
The type I found to use is the rug underlayment foam. But do not use the type of underlayment foam that is made up of shredded foam. This stuff is junk and is not any good for rug underlayment. The type I am talking about is all one color and can usually be found at the rug supply stores. (Although I guess they now have to recycle the foam pieces) You can still check as I used to be able to get the foam pieces from the rug stores.
This foam is a little stiffer than seat foam and with it only being ½” to 5/8” thick it is easier to handle when using the bench grinder with the wire wheel.
I would attach the shop vac to the outlet of the bench grinder and would be able to make 5 gal of foam in about an hour or less. Be sure and wear leather gloves as the wheel will grab the foam right out of your hands and guess where your fingers end up?
I then would use RIT dye to color the foam. Now the rug foam (at least the type I made years ago) would take the dye very easily and would keep the color.
I would just mix up a 5 gal pail with about 3 gal of dye color and dump in the foam and mix it with a big stick (later I modified a hand held cake mixer. Then let is set for a day and drain off the liquid. Spread it out on newspaper in the sun to dry. If the foam clumped together just drop the clumps into the blender!
I then had wood boxes made with different size screens to sift it into different grades.
I made a lot of this stuff. I even had color charts made as to the dye colors to use for different colors of rug foam (as this stuff came in greens, yellows, pink/red and blues – for different thicknesses and quality).
Oh by the way – I was doing this on a commercial basis! But found that it ju
Making your own ground foam takes a lot of time effectively per the amount that you produce.
Hmmmmm…Not really. I made about six quarts in two hours of six different colors.
Cost me about $4 and the time was spent drinking a few beers and listening to the stereo.The six quarts I made would have cost me $60 for a WS foam product.
I’ve let the stuff age a while (6 months) to see how color fast it is and if it degrades at all.
So far…so good…
I once used pinched off pieces of a green nurff football. It was ok for background things.
This was my first question on this forum and I know there are always some _________ Except for the first two replies who made me feel like a complete idiot, I appreciate the other six sincere reponses which I printed out .
Many thanks
Larry
check out 2 guys and sum trains website. Iv’e tried the blender thing … its slow but it works. Put small peices of foam in and stop the blender frequently to shake down the peices. putting the paint right in the blender is something I haven’t tried. In my experience RIT dye fades out in a couple years. I’ve used it on lichen and in plaster for colorant and it slowly fades. Use the cheap acrylic colors you can get at WallyWorld full strength. It gives the foam a little more body or stiffness if you will and makes it more easy to control. Fasten it down with unscented hairspray from the spray bottle not the can. The can will blow the foam away or use diluted white glue or matte medium with a little joy soap in it… I usually keep an Elmers bottle around thats marked for whats in it
Larry,
I just sent you a response to your e-mail this morning. I’m sorry for how my initial post came across. The reason I was asking why was because I had the hard, extruded foam in mind, and NOT the soft stuff for making ground foam. After I read the subsequent responses, then I understood what you were trying to accomplish.
Please forgive me for any confusion and hurt I might have caused you. [
] It really wasn’t the intention behind my original question.
Regretfully,
Tom
I saw that Two Guys article too. I’m useing the craft paint at full strength in an industrial Kitchen-aid food processor that my mom was throwing out. I’m getting most of the foam for free where I work.I’ve got a little assembly line set up and things are going well.
I like being able to control the color and texture myself. There’s a lot of foam recycleing companies here and I get the other foam I need for next to nothing.
My apologies too Larry. Sorry you took it the wrong way, I wasn’t trying to flame ya. I don’t remember reading anywhere or hearing of anyone making their own ground foam. I didn’t mean it’s a stupid idea or you’re an idiot for trying. You said that you tried a blender, scissors and paper cutter so I tried to help with another idea. We have a trim department in my shop and they sometimes grind foam with sanders to get the contour required. Hence the warning on the mess and dust mask. I thought of the youngsters here in forums who have limited resources that are building layouts with what they scrounge up
I do a bit of scratch building myself and had my share of failed experiments.
[sigh]
Well I like to use… wait, why do you grind up foam again? I think I’ve missed something, being new in the model railroading scene anyways, or at least old school with old controllers instead of DCC. I can’t even figure out DCC… Good luck!
To clarify we’re grinding foam rubber, not pink or blue or brown plastic construction foam. I think Haydens article says to use latex foam, but thats hard to come by and expensive when found. Grinding foam rubber in a blender is tedious, and by the way garage sale season is beginning at least in this area so have your garage sailing freinds be on the lookout. A blender should be in your stable of tools anyway. I’m off to find a blender I can put paint in. I bet you could find a proper shade of green for a couple bucks in the oops section of your local home improvement store. Just be sure its water based latex paint.
FYI y’all, Tom (Lothar) has gotten his stuff together! Yesterday I recieved a sample of his homemade foam and honestly, my 1st thought was that he pulled a slick one on me and repackaged some Woodland Scenics stuff.[:0] His coarse stuff looks exactly like WS stuff. The ground florist block is actually a little finer texture than the WS fine stuff. Also the selection of colors is plenty varied,but it begs the question, exactly what was used to dye the foam?? ?
I’m convinced. Next time I need foam (thanks to Tom, it will be awhile) I’m gonna fire up that 5 dollar blender in the basement and make some!!![:D]