Tag Archives: Hot Wire Foam Factory

It sounds odd wanting to lighten foam; especially when foam (at least to me) isn't thought of as being heavy. However, in terms of a large-scale plane, the wing cores can add up to be over four pounds. The roll of foam in a large scale wing is to provide aerodynamic shape and a little strength. A foam core wing is mostly dependent on its balsawood sheeting for its strength, where an all-wooden wing relies on spars to keep things rigid. The strength of a foam core wing can be increased by adding some structure and composites to distribute forces and reduce stress points. Ultimately’ you’re looking for the wing to be stronger and lighter than before the lightening process.

I have to admit that I’m not the first to light up a foam airframe, but it’s hard to say (for me anyway) that I didn’t have the most fun doing it! It all goes back to Joe Nall Week about five years ago. A group of us had a bunch of Sea Winds and we took over the float pond. In the evening, a couple of the guys acquired “new” LED lighting strips (that were just introduced to the market at that time) and stuck them on their Sea Winds so they could tear up the 3D float pond that evening. As cool as it was, the drawback was that all you could see were the lit individual LEDs themselves. It wasn’t until the next year when we bought a bunch of Multiplex Fun Cubs on floats that we really got it figured out.