Protective Coatings for Expanding Foam
Alexander H
✭✭✭
in General
Hiya! This question actually relates to my non-practical-effects job, but I figure this hivemind is the best shot I've got at helping me out.
At my new job as an orthotic technician, we sometimes get in foam legs that have been CNC routed based on scans. Don't know the foam type exactly, but it definitely feels like an expanding foam, and because it's been routed, it's a porus finish. We use these as bucks, so to say, to vacuum wrap hot plastic around them. However, because of the porus surface, we have trouble with the plastic sticking to the foam; ergo, we have to add a base layer of plastic formed around it, before adding the actual plastic we use in the orthotic.
This takes more time, wastes material and means that the foam molds have to compensate for this additional layer of plastic.
I was wondering if there's any sort of material or method out there to coat this expanding foam with? It needs to be durable enough to both withstand ~170c plastic, and for that plastic to be vacuum formed around it. It also needs to be relatively smooth, even if we were to sand it down, and still as dimensionally accurate to the original piece as possible. I've thought about what I could spray over it, or even soak it in, but I can't conceive of a reasonable solution.
At my new job as an orthotic technician, we sometimes get in foam legs that have been CNC routed based on scans. Don't know the foam type exactly, but it definitely feels like an expanding foam, and because it's been routed, it's a porus finish. We use these as bucks, so to say, to vacuum wrap hot plastic around them. However, because of the porus surface, we have trouble with the plastic sticking to the foam; ergo, we have to add a base layer of plastic formed around it, before adding the actual plastic we use in the orthotic.
This takes more time, wastes material and means that the foam molds have to compensate for this additional layer of plastic.
I was wondering if there's any sort of material or method out there to coat this expanding foam with? It needs to be durable enough to both withstand ~170c plastic, and for that plastic to be vacuum formed around it. It also needs to be relatively smooth, even if we were to sand it down, and still as dimensionally accurate to the original piece as possible. I've thought about what I could spray over it, or even soak it in, but I can't conceive of a reasonable solution.
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