TO FOAM OR NOT TO FOAM

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I pulled the factory foam out of my hull the other day...wow what a mess! It was saturated with water, and weighed a ton! It is all stripped out now and I am looking for solutions to put more in later when I am done with all my framing for my new decks. I have been peeking in on this thread and I guess that the "great stuff" is ok to use as long as its not exposed to sunlight, so...solution found!
 
Here's an idea for everybody regarding foam replacement.

If your concern is for flotation only, and the situation allows (like in a bulkhead or other enclosed area), you could use inflatable bladders. My girlfriend goes through a lot of "box wine"- Bota Box specifically. The bladder inside the box is very strong. You can blow into the valve to inflate them.

A single bladder comes with 4.5 liters of wine. It is not fully 'inflated'. When you blow them up, they're much bigger than they are in the box. I'm estimating that fully inflated, they'll hold about 6.5 liters conservatively. 6.5 liters of air = 85lbs of buoyancy. Sounds like a lot, but that's what it works out to. Fully inflated, they're approximately the size of a football.

I don't know how chemical/gasoline resistant they are, but they are pretty darn strong.
 
rgpemt said:
I pulled the factory foam out of my hull the other day...wow what a mess! It was saturated with water, and weighed a ton! It is all stripped out now and I am looking for solutions to put more in later when I am done with all my framing for my new decks. I have been peeking in on this thread and I guess that the "great stuff" is ok to use as long as its not exposed to sunlight, so...solution found!
if you have a lot to replace i would consider the two part foam stuff from us composites, i had a bunch of the pink foam board left from a build and im gonna use that with the great stuff to glue/fill in all the lil cracks, i dont know if its totaly correct way to do it but its what im gonna do, i have been fishing with no foam in it for 3-4 yrs now so what could it hurt
 
I am scrounging pennies to finish my project and today at work one of the guys told me to look into dock billets. The big floatation peices that they put under docks...

then...he went and made a few phone calls and I will be getting some very large peices for free from some old salvage docks. they are dry throughout, but the town replaced the docks this year...I WIN!

I'll hope to have some pics soon
 

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