Pvc Board Vs Foam Board
Flaviano Goldammer
The problem with cutting foam-board is that the foam melts very easily in comparison to cutting the paper on either side. In an ideal world I would expect that a 3 pass cut would give the best results with:
You can absolutely have this level of control by drawing your cut lines in different colours which will show up as different functions on the left, set the individual levels, then put them in order and voila
Yep, I thought about doing this but its tedious. Would be nice if we could set power level per pass using a single step. I got good enough results using 2 pass and did not think I would get much better results using 3 steps. Might try this when I have more time. Have you done this? Was it worth it?
Did further test strips to see if I could speed up cutting. The following settings work well when cutting medium detail parts. If parts have tight arcs less than 1/4" then settings from top post work better. There seems to be an issue with acceleration/deceleration which is amplified by this very delicate material.
I want to keep this article as scientific as possible. I don't want my opinions in it, but rather just the facts. In wanting to keep my methods of testing pure, I will first share with you what I did.
I bought an OXO Good Grips food scale from Target. It has a pull out display which turned out to be a blessing. The only real way for me to get the entire sheet of foam board on the scale and not touching anything else was to center it on the scale. Which left no room to actually see the display. So I hung the pull out display from the end of a table allowing me to look under the foam board to see the reading.
I'm not sure how accurate the scale I used is. Sometimes I would get one reading, then re-measuring I would get one gram higher or lower. All of the weights I have on this articles are the ones that came up the most and that I felt like was the most accurate. I did measure all of the weights multiple times. It may still be off by a gram, but that small of a possible error isn't an issue.
I cut out 10" x 20" pieces of foam board. Then I placed them on the seats of two chairs. I kept the chairs at the same distance apart and I put the foam board pieces on the chair in the same direction. I will note that I am unsure if foam board has a grain to it. (More detail on possible grain at the end of this article.)
I added bottles of water to the center of the foam board until the foam board crumpled in the middle, causing the foam board to fail. I tried to keep the weight in the center and not distributed, but it is kind of hard to properly do that when dealing with 8 or 9 bottles of water.
I noticed that the paper on the Adam (Dollar Tree) brand is a lot thinner and is easy to peel off. Elmer's and Flip Side are about the same and it is hard to peel off the paper. It is to the point where foam goes with the paper when you peel it off of Elmer's and Flip Side; But with Adam, you can easily remove the paper without affecting the foam.
The Adam (Dollar Tree) brand foam board is a lot easier to cut. Almost no resistance at all where as the Elmer's and Flip Side brand it can be more difficult and is common to have to cut twice to actually get the paper cut that is against the cutting surface. Elmer's and Flip Side also dull blades quicker because of this.
I want to keep this up to you. There is a clear difference between Adam and the other two, but the other two really aren't that different. That doesn't mean any of them are better than the others. A lighter plane can mean that you don't crash as hard, so you don't need the strength. You may know you're going to break it regardless and you'd rather go cheap. Maybe you don't mind the extra cost or extra weight because you want the strength. It's just up to you.
Today I cut out a 20" x 10" piece of Adams (Dollar Tree) foam board, from a new sheet, so that any possible grain in the foam would be going the other way. This piece weighted 39 grams, instead of the 38 I got from the other two tests. This is probably from the other two pieces weighing close to 39, but this one was probably cut a little bigger. This piece handled having three water bottles on it just fine. But it broke right away once a fourth one was added. I'm not sure if this even means that the foam it's self has a grain to it. With the first tests, it could handle having three water bottles for a second, then it broke. With this test it broke right away. Clearly a fourth bottle was way too much. I think the darker streaks in the Adams foam, when you hold it up to a light, is from the glue used to hold on the paper.
Again, this second test showed that cutting the Adams foam board so any possible grain is running in another direction did improve strength. But it wasn't a significant amount. I don't think it is necessary to do the same test to the other brands because they are clearly so different from the Dollar Tree (Adams) foam board.
I don't think the foam part of foam board has any grain to it. The paper will, but that shouldn't effect the strength very much. And it may have been the paper and/or the way the paper was glued that changed the foam board's strength (a little bit). (To me it looks like long streaks of glue was applied at the factory, then the paper was added to the foam. This could cause a grain in the glue.)
I do also want to mention that with the Elmer's and Flip Side brands, the weight was spread out due to the number of water bottles used. If the same weight had been centered better, they would have broken sooner. Meaning that those two brands may not be as much stronger as they appear from my data. I think Elmer's and Flip Side are about twice the weight of Adams, and have 2-3 times the strength. Which makes sense.
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Rigid foam insulation board is an innovative building and construction material that can significantly reduce a building's energy use and help control indoor temperature. Shop our selection of Rigid Insulation Browse Below and feel free to contact a member of our team on 786 224 0029 or via Live Chat. Read Our Guide to know more about insulation rigid foam.
When using foam board insulation in residential and commercial properties the most common boards used would be Polyiso (polyisocyanurate), EPS or XPS. Each type of board insulation is very different and carry different R-values and compressive strength. So let's have a deeper look at rigid foam.
Polyiso is short for Polyisocyanurate and can also be called PIR for an even shorter version. Polyiso would be one of the best-performing foam board on the market today giving the highest R-values for the least thickness.
Polyiso insulation can also be used whereby air-tightness is required. Taping the joints and sealing the edges along with using airtight membranes will create an airtight home while maintaining a AAA rating for your homes insulation values.
If you wish to install this insulation in your stud walls it is easily cut with a box knife of a carpenter's handsaw. If you are using a handsaw it is a good idea if possible to cut the foil face on the insulation before you start to cut the insulation. This is not a necessity rather more of good practice as it will give you a much cleaner edge when you're done cutting. Make sure when measuring the openings in which the insulation will be getting installed into to allow for about 2-3mm or wider than required so you get a nice snug fit. The tighter the fit the less chance you have of air leakage and small gaps can be worse than big holes as small gaps can cause a rushing of air effect. This method of installation is also used when working on attic floors, crawlspaces, basements, and external walls.
Polystyrene board insulation would be one of the least efficient rigid board insulations today. However, all is not lost as EPS has a high compressive strength and is great for carparks or floors that are carrying a little more weight than usual. Also, EPS insulation would be widely used in passive housing for the foundations. Insulating the foundations is vital to achieve a passive house rating and EPS is an excellent cost-effective method of insulating your foundations and the good characteristics of strength, light and cheap makes EPS your best friend when insulating your foundations.
Expanded polystyrene board is easy to cut with a box knife or hand saw. EPS insulation does not have a foil attached to it so no need to score the insulation first before cutting it with a handsaw. Be careful however around any naked flames. Fire and EPS get on very well and EPS will burn and will billow out black smoke so if it does go up in flames stay away. Do not breathe in the black smoke. If you take all the usual precautions when using EPS it will perform extremely well and will continue to do so with no depletion in performance over the duration of the life cycle of the building. Other insulations cannot boast such amazing lifetime performance.
Much like EPS in its appearance XPS is the big daddy of EPS. A foam board insulation such as Pink insulation foam FOAMULAR 250 XPS is stronger, just as light and far exceeds the compressive strength of its EPS counterpart. XPS foam also gives a higher r-value but of course, with all these fantastic additions to the insulation, there is a price difference. XPS would be in the region of 20-30% more expensive than EPS. However, XPS would be more widely used in the commercial/industrial insulation sector where compressive strength is a real requirement. Once again XPS like the other rigid board insulations is easy to cut and lightweight. XPS and EPS are closed-cell insulation and will not lose their insulation values over time, unlike Polyiso insulation which will deplete over circa 30 year period.
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