bought a 4x8 pink foam board. very expensive. what is the difference in using WHITE foam to blue or pink in scenery. thank you
White foam is sometimes called “beadboard” or expanded styrofoam. It is not as strong, and does not cut as well (all those little beads come apart…).
Pink or blue styrofoam is extruded, and is very strong compared to the beadboard.
If you want to use styrofoam for the subroadbed/decking on your layout, you can use the blue or pink over a frame only. If you use beadboard, you will need to have a complete layer of plywood underneath for strength. You will also need to be very careful about how you treat it, as it is damaged easily.
However, if you are just using it for scenery only (on a plywood table top for example) the white beadboard is OK. Just watch out for the mess when cutting and shaping.
Andrew
Pink foam by itself is expensive. But as compared to traditional L-girder wood benchwork and all the associated materials needed to create hardshell scenery, it’s cheap.
The white beadboard foam is OK tu use for scenic contours, but I wouldn’t use it as the primary load-bearing base for a layout. It has no structural strength.
i want to use it for tunnels and hills only. thanks lynne
I picked up a jeep load of blue foam at a construction site down the block. It was after the foundation phase and they gave me, free, the equivelent of about 8 4x8 sheets. Watch where houses are going up, there is lots if they will give it to you. They were pretty stingy with me until I told them I was a model railroader, and then after I listened to the workers stories of when he was a kid, he gave it all to me.
great idea, thank you
I live in Southern California and have been unable to find the pink or blue foam. Some thing about the dry climate. Anyone know where to order it? I’m nearly out of the supply a friend sent me from Ohio. He picked it up from a construction site, I payed the postage.
David King
David,
Do a search of the forum. That question gets asked here quite a bit. I cannot recall the answer though - I live in Ottawa (Canada) where there often is not enough insulation…! [;)]
Andrew
john david king------------------- stay on this forum, layouts and layout building, go to page 3, pink or blue foam board in la
How expensive?
4 x 8 x 1/2, $11.00
John David King posted:
“I live in Southern California and have been unable to find the pink or blue foam. Some thing about the dry climate. Anyone know where to order it? I’m nearly out of the supply a friend sent me from Ohio. He picked it up from a construction site, I payed the postage.”
Yup. This thread has passed through here countless times. I live in Northern California and it took months of searching to find it. It was so hard to find that there was even discussion about it being illegal in California. Not so.
I fiinally found a large supply at Home Depot in San Jose. After trying many Home Depots that were listed as carrying it on the Owens-Corning Website, I found one that had it. And I only found that one by cornering the manager of one of the Home Depot stores and asking him to search for me. He did a search and located a store that had it in stock. It was pretty cheap ($6) so I bought 10 2’x8’ sheets of 3/4". I use it on top of 1/2" plywood as subroadbed.
Good luck with your search in Southern California :-).
dammit, that’s more than plywood.
I paid $14 for a 2" sheet [4x8]. About half the price of the 1/2" plywood I use.
Not up here in Illinois, it’s not.
I just priced foam: $7 for a 1/2" sheet, $15.50 for a 1.5" sheet, and $19 for a 2" sheet. 1/4" pine plywood was going for $14 a sheet, and it’s nowhere NEAR as versatile as foam.
It’s a good thing I live in the city where Dow Chemical makes the *** blue foam, I can get it super cheap here.
I’m also new to the forum, i’m 18 getting back into my early childhood of model railroading. A bit young for the hobby I suppose but I recently paid a visit to Northern Minnesota and something sparked my reinterest in this hobby by seeing all the Canadian National and old Duluth Missabe & Iron Range trains at the Minntac plants.
Im looking for information on model railroading and forums. I’m modeling in O guage, because thats what I have and don’t want to spend the money switching scales when I’ve got plenty of a different one. Anyways, any information is helpful. (I know Model railroader is primarily a HO/N scale magazine). I’m trying to go for the most realistic design using O, my time frame is 1980’s-90’s, so a lot of Missabe, CN, Burlington Northern.
It seems strange to me that insulating foam (of whatever kind) is so hard to find in hotter places like California. Insulation is not only very good at keeping the heat in (like we northerners need); but also in keeping the heat out (and, conversely, the cool in).
One would think that a home in southern California, Arizona or Texas (or any other southern state) would have lower energy (ie: air-conditioning) costs if it were insulated as well as their counterparts in nothern climes.
Something to think about next time you’re paying your electricity bill while sitting in one of those infamous rotating blackouts. [2c]
The thing about this kind of foam is that it is often used for moisture control around foundations, not in walls. This is part of the reason it is so hard to find in California.
Some of the prices I’ve seen tossed around here are rather interesting. Some very high, some low. Here in the northland where the stuff is easy to come by, the norm seems to be $5 - $6 per 1/2" thickness.
Art’s idea is a great one, if you happen to have construction sites near you. If I had really wanted to take the time, I could probably have gotten half of my benchwork for free. I have been known to dumpster dive on occasion.
I think I paid nearly $12 for 2’x8’x2", not 4’x8’. Perhaps HD is not such a good deal for such things?
Are you implying that Californians don’t have the soil moisture problems ?
I have seen extruded foam used as wall insulation above grade just as often as I’ve seen it used to insulate foundations.