bananaboater
Ensign
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2009
- Messages
- 932
The Owens Corning "1/2 inch" thick pink styrofoam is not 1/2". An asterisk by the number leads you to an explanation that says "nominal." Who'ed a thunk? Or even looked for the asterisk. 
My Jet Starcraft's insulation is sandwiched in between the decking and the hull and between the ribs. I measured the old insulation, 1" thick. Went to HD to buy 1 inch thick, not stocked. So I bought 4 sheets of half inch at $10/sheet, cut them in half to get them into my Rav4, came home and began cutting them for the boat. I always do tests to be sure what I am doing will work and after cutting two sets of flotation I placed them in the boat and tried fitting a scrap piece of 1/4 marine ply over them. It gets pop riveted to the ribs. Seemed too thick so I cut some smaller thinking that the flange of the rib might be making it too high. Not so.
Then I took two stacked pieces of pink and laid them down next to an old white and low and behold it was about 1/4" thicker. That is when I saw the "NOMINAL" asterisk.
It seems that the "half inch" is the only one with that annotation so if you need exactly 1 inch of pink Owens Corning floatation DO NOT buy two sheets of "1/2"" thinking that will work.
So it goes. In the 21st century one would think a company as well established as Owens Corning could set their machines to produce a half inch thick piece of pink insulation and avoid making human beings like myself $40 poorer.
I guess my shop will be a bit warmer this winter.
My Jet Starcraft's insulation is sandwiched in between the decking and the hull and between the ribs. I measured the old insulation, 1" thick. Went to HD to buy 1 inch thick, not stocked. So I bought 4 sheets of half inch at $10/sheet, cut them in half to get them into my Rav4, came home and began cutting them for the boat. I always do tests to be sure what I am doing will work and after cutting two sets of flotation I placed them in the boat and tried fitting a scrap piece of 1/4 marine ply over them. It gets pop riveted to the ribs. Seemed too thick so I cut some smaller thinking that the flange of the rib might be making it too high. Not so.
Then I took two stacked pieces of pink and laid them down next to an old white and low and behold it was about 1/4" thicker. That is when I saw the "NOMINAL" asterisk.
It seems that the "half inch" is the only one with that annotation so if you need exactly 1 inch of pink Owens Corning floatation DO NOT buy two sheets of "1/2"" thinking that will work.
So it goes. In the 21st century one would think a company as well established as Owens Corning could set their machines to produce a half inch thick piece of pink insulation and avoid making human beings like myself $40 poorer.
I guess my shop will be a bit warmer this winter.
