Adding Urethane Foam for better flotation

[Boatist]

Re: Adding Urethane Foam for better flotation

check out this site<br /> http://www.uscomposites.com/foam.html

 

[mellowyellow]

Re: Adding Urethane Foam for better flotation

good info. guys! boatist, that site claims it<br />"resists" absorbtion.. hmmmm. I like the plastic<br />sealing idea Ed.<br />I am a computer hardware reseller, and some<br />companies use expansion foam for shipping certain<br />items. they use a bag to keep the foam from getting<br />all over everything. have even seen in some<br />packing material company catalogs pre-fab bags<br />that you break the seal and then it mixes/expands to<br />the shape desired. what do you guys think?

 

[epresutti]

Re: Adding Urethane Foam for better flotation

MellowYellow,<br /><br />Pre-mix sounds interesting as long as you can get the exact volume you need for the compartment you are filling, otherwise you are back to trimming the foam and you have broken the bag seal to do it.<br /><br />I have also seen people use lot's of 2 liter bottles with sealed caps and foam them into place. If you get varied sizes (other than 2 liter) you can fill almost all of the compartment. This creates large "air bubbles" that are very boyent. It significantly reduces the amount of foam. At that point water saturation of the foam is negligable. Instead of micr-balloon contruction, I would call it MACRO-balloon <br /><br />Just another thought.<br /><br />Safe boating to all.<br /><br />Cheers.<br /><br />emp.

 

[mellowyellow]

Re: Adding Urethane Foam for better flotation

wow, amazing what people come up with!<br />thanks Ed.

 

[Spidybot]

Re: Adding Urethane Foam for better flotation

But Ed, if you have tight caps for the bottles, there's no reason to fill 'em with foam..

 

[CalicoKid]

Re: Adding Urethane Foam for better flotation

Ed meant to fill AROUND the bottles with foam. <br />Those foam packaging peanuts that are filling up our landfills also make good filler when mixed or layered in with the foam. Saves a lot of foam. The peanuts don't melt with contact to the PU foams I've used but test first!

 

[epresutti]

Re: Adding Urethane Foam for better flotation

UU,<br /><br />I agree that with tight caps you don't need to fill around them with foam for floatation. The only issue is (story about a racing sailboat over the big pond, where the hull split open and all the bottles floated away), if there is a breach you want the floatation to stay in the boat, foam will fix it it place, so bottles "no float away" when hull has a big hole in it <br /><br />I might try this next time (hopefully not on my current boat).<br /><br />Safe boating to all.<br /><br />Cheers.<br /><br />emp.