Does Expanding Foam Hold Up?
 

I am trying to decide what crawler to buy and one of the first things I want to do is build a small course in my shop to play around on. I have seen all of the stuff about using the expanding foam you can buy in the cans and was going to use that and then paint over it with Rock Flake type spray paint. My question is will it hold up to the crawlers wheel spin? If so, any size crawler, 1.9 or 2.2?

It might, but depending on the foam you use, it might disolve when spray paint it as the spray paints are solvent based.

I tried the same thing and had 3 problems:
1. Needed TOO much foam to build a 2.2 course
2. s0me foam dissolved under spray paint
3. Weighted wheels tore it up.

Wait for the 1:24 Losi, the spray foam will make a great course!

expanding foam with just paint on it wont hold up real well but you can cover with fiberglass of an epoxy paint to make it stronger,,,but it will take a lot of cans to make a course of any kind of size,,if you wanna go that route with foam you might wanna check local suppliers for sheet poly foam boards,,and carve one then coat it,,,it would be a lot cheaper

or use chicken wire as the base and apply the foam over the top then coat that,,but youll need to coat it,,maybe some epoxy floor paint

Thanks for all of the responses guys. I have two more questions.

1. Will the epoxy floor type paint work for just something like the Losi MRC or would it hold up to something like an AX-10?

2. I also thought about using blocks of wood, logs, different size pvc pipe pieces, and things of that sort attached to something like a half sheet of plywood. I would make a few of them so that i could change the slopes and course up as i wanted to, any opinions on that?

Epoxy flooring will hold up to 80,000 pound semi's in a shop,,yeah it'll hold up to your ax-10....just remember when you make your panels to make them managable,,,if you dont youll hate em

you could also make your panels out of 1/4 sheets,,2' x 4' that way you have your course with alot less space

You'll need to put some pretty rough texture in it if you use the epoxy floor paint. It's very durable (like RMD said, it's the stuff they use on shop floors) but it's also very slippery. I have personally done burnouts on this stuff in a Geo Metro.

spray/brush on textured bed liner?

Plus it gets way too stiff. If you try and move the thing and it flexes the epoxy coating has a good chance of cracking. Thats why it's meant for concrete floors only. No flexing, no cracking.


Yeah, I'd go this route. You can buy the brush on stuff at a lot of auto part stores. Probably be cheaper than buying 4-5 cans of spray paint at $7/ea.

Okay, well after researching and reading other posts as well as everyones much appreciated responses to this posts, here is what I am thinking. I will make the course of out blocks of wood, scrap pieces really, maybe different size cut up pieces of PVC, also saw people use heavy cardboard and soda cans. I will glue/nail/screw all that down in a pattern I like and the maybe do a little fill in with spray foam. I will then coat the whole thing with a layer of something like the bedliner material. Any thoughts?

Sounds like a plan.

Im making a course the same way only im gonna put plaster sheeting used for model train layouts over it and paint it with this paint at lowes that makes things look like rock its even textured

I did what your talking about in #2. Once you start looking around you would be surprised what you can find to crawl on. I will take a couple of pis of what I ended up with and post them up so you can see for yourself.

Thanks 71mosher, I would really appreciate that.

Definitely want to coat the spray foam with something if you go that route..... unless you want it to end up like this:
http://www.rccrawler.com/forum/attac...1&d=1227409800

That's not good. Maybe foam is a bad idea.

OK here it is. I have some more if you want to see them.

http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/h...r/IMG_6203.jpg

http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/h...r/IMG_6196.jpg

http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/h...r/IMG_6197.jpg

http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/h...r/IMG_6199.jpg

That is very, very cool!! I would love to see more pics if you don't mind posting them.

the epoxy floor coating wont pop off of foam,,the foam has pours in it that the epoxy adheres to,,,and good epoxy floor coatings dont get concrete hard,,the stay semi-permiable,,,it will work,,

and a few more...
http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/h...r/IMG_6200.jpg

http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/h...r/IMG_6201.jpg

http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/h...r/IMG_6204.jpg

This is on the other end of the garage. We race short course trucks on that part.

http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/h...r/IMG_6195.jpg