Bi-annual foam rant

I make this post every two years or so, hoping some not-so-braindead
fly tying
materials wholesaler will (finally) recongnize a good idea, package it
up
and sell it, so we all can use it.

The closed-cell dryfly foam they (everybody) sell in fly shops is
lousy. Stinks, in fact.
It's too dense and heavy to work well for its intended purpose. You
might think
your closed-cell Chernoble Hoppers are great, but that's only because
you don't know
any better. Make those same hoppers out of ultra-ligth weight foam and
you'll see what I'm
talking about. You'll never want to use anything else.

It is entirely possible to buy ultra-lightweight closed-cell foam, and
yet nobody does it.
The most amazing part of this story is that I figured this all out in
1991 or so,
when I was investigating materials for boat seat covers.

Foam is sold to big distributors by the bun, where a bun is like a cord
of wood:
a 4' x 4' x 8' block of foam, shipped over from Taiwan, usually. That's
a lot of foam.
Buns are characterized by 3 main attributes: the resin type it's made
from, the color
and the bun weight.

The foam they sell in fly tying stores (Evazote, etc) all has a
relatively high bun
weight. High bun weight foam is the most expensive. Salesmen make a
bigger markup
on high bun weight foam, so they hoodwink dim-witted fly tying
materials packagers
into buying it.....instead of the stuff they should be buying.

Low buw weight foam is amazing. It is absolutely impossible to sink.
You cannot get it at retail anywhere. You don't have to buy a whole
bun, but you
do have to talk to a wholesaler and buy about $500 worth of it to get
it all.
If Rainey or Dan Bailey or somebody finally got smart (fat chance), and
sold the right stuff,
you could make grasshoppers and adult stoneflies and bass bugs and
beatles
that cannot be drowned. You could make grasshoppers that serve as
fish-catching
strike indicators (bobbers) for lead-wrapped WoollyBuggers.

I do it all the time. But I'm only a year or two away from running out
of
the samples I got from a wholesaler 15 years ago, and I don't want to
have to buy a half
bun of foam just to make good grasshoppers again. I'd really like it if
the wholesalers
finally got smart. Is it to much to ask? (distributors finally get a
clue?).

wrote

materials wholesaler will (finally) recongnize a good idea, package it
up
and sell it, so we all can use it.



Why not an addition to the boat biz? "If you want something done right,
you have to do it yourself."

Why not an addition to the boat biz? "If you want something done right,
you have to do it yourself."



God forbid. To make money selling fly tying materials to fly
shops you need to be organized and efficient, and you need high
volumn. I already miss out on the first two requirements.

Salmo Bytes wrote:

Why not an addition to the boat biz? "If you want something done right,
you have to do it yourself."

God forbid. To make money selling fly tying materials to fly
shops you need to be organized and efficient, and you need high
volumn. I already miss out on the first two requirements.

What is the ultra-low-weight foam used for in the real world?

What sorts of tools are used to slice the buns of the normal closed cell
foam into the forms that are retailed? Maybe these are not appropriate
for the ultra-low-weight stuff?

Oh they're appropriate (tools the big foam guys have).

Wholesale outfits like Industrial Rubber in Seattle
can slice the stuff, in 4' x 4' sheets, to whatever thickness
you want. I bought several hundred dollars worth of
low bun weight EVA (ethyl vinyl acetate) foam in various
colors. Gave most of it away. Sold some. Still have some.
They let me know my $300 dollar order was more of a nuisance
than a sale for them. And that was 15 years ago.

EVA isn't the only alternative. There are other resins.
What's it used for? Good question. I don't don't know the
answer. Most foam is sold for industrial packing...equipment
padding. Stiff and dense and heavy is good in that context.

I dont' think there is much market for the ultra-light low
bun weight stuff, else it would be easier to get. But it
does exist. You just have to buy enough of it to get it.

Salmo's rant rang true and was snipped for brevity.

The common denominator for bouyancy or density in foam seems to be pounds
per cubic foot. Do you recall what your EVA weighs?

Do you recall the manufacturer and the product id? Are they on the web
today?

Y20 and 2# XPE from Specialty Foams www.irfoam.com for example are two
closed cell foams weighing 2 pcf. The Y80 weighs 8 pcf and the 4# XPE
weighs 4 pcf and these may be machinable and shaped but are heavier.

Balsa for example can weigh as low as 4 pcf but most is in the 7-12 pcf
range with heavy knot hole wood in the twenties.

Is your EVA foam machinable? Can it be sanded? Can it be cut or shaped by
a hot wire? What can it be painted with other than Prismacolor or similar
pens?

The white Y20 and off white XPE for example are soft, non-machinable, cannot
be easily bored to create dowells or cylinders easily formed via hot wire,
IMHO.

No doubt they float very high on the water but when I asked the sales lady
what type of adhesive to use to attach a hook, she glazed over. But she
quickly assured me they could injection-mold any shape with embedded hook -
if the order was big enough! I did not have enough money or guts to ask her
how big that order had to be! g A Special or new hook minimum order is
100,000. Yep no guts - no $ that's me.

But I am very interested in your response.

Good luck!
John

In article . com,
says...
You don't have to buy a whole
bun, but you
do have to talk to a wholesaler and buy about $500 worth of it to get
it all.


I'm in for 20 bucks worth, give or take, if anybody else wants to
split some up...

Kevin

--
reply to: kevin dot vang at minotstateu dot edu