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So I made some mistakes when plucking out the foam in my brand-new sabol trays (what a pain in the ass-I'm really starting to drool over the battlefoam stuff! with a little bit of luck my suggestions will get picked in the contest)

I was about to give up and go through the pain (and stab-wounds in the fingers) of sewing them on, when I decided I'd try an experiment, using the many kinds of glue in the house. I didn't bother with hot glue, that would obviously melt the stuff, or zap glue, which just seemed like a bad choice.

Elmers and PVA were total disasters, didn't stick at all, but the trusty gorilla glue came through marvelously.

It reaffixed the foam firmly, and when you tear the foam off again, it feels almost exactly like it did when I pulled it out of the tray the first time!

I'm using it not just to fix my mistakes, but to firm up the grid that I've torn for my xv8x suits.

Awesome news, that sounds familiar. My sabol is a bit tatty.
I also want to use the spare foam to line some tupperware for
my tanks.
What is gorilla glue like????

I gave a damaged sabol tray to my wife, and she used Hot Glue (wife is a domestic craft goddess) and it looks really good. Did NOT damage the foam at all..

Gorilla glue is good, but it expands about 3x from liquid.. did you compress the join or not?

porkuslime wrote:

Gorilla glue is good, but it expands about 3x from liquid.. did you compress the join or not?

naaah, didn't bother, the foam is so squishy anyway, it seemed like it'd be a super pain in the butt to clamp. The expansion wasn't noticeable, and it didn't cause any kind of deforming of the foam. Surprising to hear hot glue works so well. . . I think it's also a factor that your wife is a skilled operator. When I try to think of me doing that, I imagine terrible burns, bits of foam melted into my skin, an atrocious smell, and a collapsed tray.

Having a way to fix it really takes the pressure off when you're plucking the foam - when I pull something off, the whole thing isn't ruined. . .

yeah, I know, I like things perfect. I'd hate for it to be even a little messed up.

as for the question of "what is it like," I would say "it's like glue." It comes out in a brownish gel, and you can supposedly paint over it. . . for more specifics I'd have to refer you to google. check out the company's website - they must have one.

Alex Kolodotschko wrote:Awesome news, that sounds familiar. My sabol is a bit tatty.
I also want to use the spare foam to line some tupperware for
my tanks.
What is gorilla glue like????

I think it'll work fine for what you want to do, the one thing you'll want to remember is that it takes more than an hour to dry, so get everything in place and glue it and don't muck with it until it's dry. "Open working time" is 10-15 minutes.

I like your idea - I love repurposed junk of all sorts.

I had thought about using hot glue on a few of my trays where the side wall has separated from the base... I don't think it's hot enough to melt the foam, but I admit I could be wrong. (From what i remember, you can usually touch the glue and it's not pleasant*, but it's not going to burn your fingers.)

*Unless you're into that kind of thing of course.**

**Perv.

As far as hot glue goes, there are two types: low temp, and high temp. The glue gun will typically be one or the other; I don't think I've seen a multisetting hot glue gun. (Sometimes the glue sticks themselves can be used for either; read the packaging.)

Balance wrote:(From what i remember, you can usually touch the glue and it's not pleasant*, but it's not going to burn your fingers.)

No burn, maybe, but it blisters like heck if you get too much on you. . .

I went to a quaker school where they gave us free reign with glue guns in 2nd grade. Don't touch.