On 11/3/2015 7:40 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 11/3/2015 1:09 PM, Don Y wrote:
You are looking for polypropylene foam. Usually molded in billets and
sliced to
size or custom molded to shape. You won't find it in retail stores,
but you
may have some luck with industrial foam packaging houses that do
fabricating.
http://www.epp.com/
A place like this may have what you want.
http://foammart.com/home/
Nope. Again, that's more homogenous than the black stuff.
There are all sorts of foams ranging from soft and springy to stiff and
"plastic". But, every one is a uniform texture throughout, doesn't
have the rubbery feel, flexible, "styrofoam looking", etc.
Trust me, I've done a *lot* of looking -- in stores, google images,
etc. It's frustrating to have so many examples of it in my
personal possession and *not* be able to find even a *name* for the
stuff!
The name is polypro, molded, not extruded. BASF and a few others make such a
product. As I said, it is an industrial foam that you wont find in retail stores.
This is what I found for polypropylene foam at BASF:
http://www.plasticsportal.net/wa/plasticsEU~ru_RU/portal/show/content/products/foams/neopolen_p_e
The description doesn't sound promising.
I gave them a call last week and described the foam that I have.
They, apparently, have a database (expert system?) that lets
them make a best guess as to the material based on a variety
of descriptive criteria that I provided (including names of
customers that I know to be using it).
Haven't heard back from them (but, I've been preoccupied with other
issues and haven't made it a priority). In hindsight, I should
have just offered to mail them a sample and see if they could
sort it out from the touchy-feely approach. :
Hopefully, I'll have some time later this week to followup.
I've also calls in to some colleagues who may have contacts with
some of the folks currently using it ("horse's mouth")
BTW. that styrofoam looking stuff isn't. Styrofoam is the trademarked name of
an extruded eps foam and what you are looking for is a molded foam with a bead
structure similar to expanded polystyrene foam.
But what do I know, I've only been in the molded foam business for 45 years.
I long ago learned that there is ALWAYS something new to be learned!
If not, you've got a boring job! :