Thomas Prufer
wibbled on Monday 19 October 2009 08:57

I'd like to make foam toolbox inserts, the kind where each tool has a foam
pocket shaped to fit the tool. Usually, that would be made with a scalpel,
foam, and patience, or foam precut into little cubes.

I am looking for a shortcut, and have come up with following idea: place
the tools on a flat surface, cover with plastic sheeting, possibly pull it
close using a vacuum, box sides suitably, and spray with expanding foam.
Let harden, even the top side, flip over, trim any undercut and remove
tools. Possibly cover nasty yellow crumbly foam with pretty felt. (A
similar method is used for custom packaging:

http://www.sealedair.com/eu/en/products/protective/instapak/instapak.html).

It sounds cheap, easy, simple and effective.

However, from own experience (and reading about canoes), polyurethane foam
can be nasty stuff...

Does anyone see downsides to this, aside from the hell of picking and
scraping polyurethane foam off the tools should the plastic sheet break?
Any improvements, caveats, better ideas?


Thomas Prufer

Sounds good. I lined my boxes with that cubed foam you mentioned - but,
despite being glued in with spray Evostick, it does tend to be a bit
wobbly.

Didn't someone mention soft expanding foam the other day?...

--
Tim Watts

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