13 replies to this topic

[Jack19]

What would be the best brand of FBR for micro stefans? I have thought about ordering the beige Hot Rod foam from Best Materials, is this a quality choice?

Edited by Jack19, 03 February 2015 - 11:57 AM.

[Droid31]

I use this, it is very expensive compared to other foams but it works very well. The best materials foam is the best bang for your buck. There is also MHA foam, but it can be hard to buy from those guys.

[Gears]

I have been using a pocket knife and carving off little bits of my moms memory foam mattress the past year and she hasn't noticed yet. The foam is thick, consistent, and is the only foam I can easily find by scent. You can't do this every war though so be careful!

[rockinon96]

'Jack19', on 03 Feb 2015 - 4:56 PM, said:

What would be the best brand of FBR for micro stefans? I have thought about ordering the beige Hot Rod foam from Best Materials, is this a quality choice?

I think it doesn't really matter (to an extant) of what foam you use, It is all just opinions.

I would recommend KaneTheMediocre's foam. It's nice, consistent, and it's pink!

AAAANND let the rambling begin...

Now think about it this way, if you were in a war with friends, family, whatever, and you get hit with a pink foam Stefan, that would suck. With that being said, I know that getting hit with ANY Stefan would hurt physically. But emotionally, being hit with a pink one would truly hurt emotionally... ESPECIALLY if it came from someone who named their blaster, "The Fluffy Bunny".

IMAGE MACROS ARE NOT ALLOWED

Edited by Langley, 04 February 2015 - 06:31 PM.

[Spiderbite]

I use this, it hasn't failed me yet, and its super cheap.

http://www.amazon.co...foam backer rod

[Spud Spudoni]

'rockinon96', on 03 Feb 2015 - 8:15 PM, said:

I would recommend KaneTheMediocre's foam. It's nice, consistent, and it's pink!

If you plan on making non silicone style darts, I would not recommend using this type of foam. They are very interested in keeping this foam used for a single design, and I don't think will sell it to you unless you also buy the silicone materials to build dart heads. However, if this is up your alley, then go for it.

'rockinon96', on 03 Feb 2015 - 8:15 PM, said:

Now think about it this way, if you were in a war with friends, family, whatever, and you get hit with a pink foam Stefan, that would suck. With that being said, I know that getting hit with ANY Stefan would hurt physically. But emotionally, being hit with a pink one would truly hurt emotionally... ESPECIALLY if it came from someone who named their blaster, "The Fluffy Bunny".

Coming from the stand point, that this is a hobby wear blasters painted mil/sim and blasters painted black are looked down upon, and blasters painted flamboyantly or humorously are cool, I don't see why getting hit with pink darts makes you a bitch. It's all about what's easiest to find in the field. Plain and simple.

[Birch]

beige hot rod xl is great. So is loghome store foam. I have used both, and I can say that they have the same value. Loghome store foam is much more expensive but darts can last at least 6 time longer than hot rod. In addition the recovery rate is great. I personally love both equally, but it just depends on how much dough you're willing to drop on some foam.

[jwasko]

'Spiderbite', on 03 Feb 2015 - 9:02 PM, said:

I use this, it hasn't failed me yet, and its super cheap.

http://www.amazon.co...foam backer rod

What sort of barrel material do you typically use with this foam?
I usually try to stick to foam that I can use with CPVC barreled springers (i.e., not really fat foam...it tends to get stuck in my RSCB clip material), so if this is similar to what I normally get I might have to try it.

Edited by jwasko, 04 February 2015 - 10:57 AM.

[Spiderbite]

'jwasko', on 04 Feb 2015 - 3:57 PM, said:

What sort of barrel material do you typically use with this foam?
I usually try to stick to foam that I can use with CPVC barreled springers (i.e., not really fat foam...it tends to get stuck in my RSCB clip material), so if this is similar to what I normally get I might have to try it.

This stuff is a pretty nice snug fit in CPVC. It takes a good amount of effort to blow a stefan out a barrel, if that gives you any idea. I think this foam is actually ideal in CPVC.

[skullface44]

In my experience Hot rod xl is grate foam but it is too fat to fit in cpvc, it will work fine in a hopper with a cpvc barrel but if you are breach loading or using speed loaders you may have a hard time, it fits perfectly into petg though . If you want to use it with cpvc stretching it slightly will make it a perfect push fit into cpvc, this foam is very easy to stench and it handles the process very well. You can make it very thin if you want ( like air gun fit in cpvc ). It also is very heat resistant and durable. If you want beige foam this is your best choice, it is much better then Seara rod.

The white log home FBR is expensive but it is also grate foam, I have ordered it many times and it is very consistent. It is a nice push fit in cpvc for spring powered basters and has a nice are gun fit in petg. This foam is also very heat resistant and can be stretched if you need to do so, however it is not as good of a candidate for stretching as the beige hot rod foam.

The foam from amazon that spiderbite suggested is not as good as log home white or beige hot rod xl but it is much better then the fbr found in hardware stores and the foam from Mc Master-carr (mc master foam is terrible in my opinion )

The best foam i have ever used came from this company, you can get in any colour and size and it is amazing, they are very hard to get in contact with and to buy from though and someone i know got scammed using that site.

The foam from MHA is proabaly the second best foam I have used, grate fit in cpvc for spring blasters, it is very durable in my opinion and it is very easy to find because it is pink. Might be a litre hard to get from MHA and they will only sell it to people who make safe metal free darts. That is not a con for me because i really like silicon domes and have made a nice dart tip mold that makes xplorer sized silicon domes, but if you don't make metal free darts it might be a con for you.

Keep in mind that this is all just my opinion and experiences with the specific foam I have in my weather conditions with my brand/ batch of cpvc and petg

Edited by skullface44, 04 February 2015 - 09:13 PM.

[Jack19]

I use an RSBC clip with a cpvc barrel. Will the hot rod still work? I make #6 slug darts by the way because they are safer than glue domes. Thanks

Edited by Jack19, 04 February 2015 - 09:26 PM.

[flyingchicken]

'Jack19', on 05 Feb 2015 - 02:24 AM, said:

I use an RSBC clip with a cpvc barrel. Will the hot rod still work? I make #6 slug darts by the way because they are safer than glue domes. Thanks

Well-made domes are safer than poorly made slugs.

[skullface44]

'Jack19', on 05 Feb 2015 - 02:24 AM, said:

I use an RSBC clip with a cpvc barrel. Will the hot rod still work? I make #6 slug darts by the way because they are safer than glue domes. Thanks

If you use a RSCB with a cpvc barrel you may have some problems if you don't stretch the hot rod xl foam. Hopefully not though

[DX-Robert]

Log Home white used to be a fat foam with a good metal fit. I stopped ordering it when it became a thin CPVC fit without warning. The fat variant is the best performing foam I have ever encountered, if you want to max out the most powerful blasters available, this is the foam you use. The fat version is extremely resistant to heat, but a good hair dryer held over a pillowcase will do the trick. Unlike most foam, you really need to apply pressure when burning the holes in for the weight. It's best used with #8s for slugs and no lighter than 3/0 fishing weights for domes. For barrels, use aluminum or brass. If you can't obtain those metals, use medium wall copper (you have to ask specifically for this), or magic CPVC (if you can find it) or thin wall PETG. Because it's so expensive and now not guaranteed to be received, don't waste this foam on lesser darts or weaker blasters. Save this shit for when you need to bring out your A+ game. However, note that white is easy to identify in mid-air and to then dodge. You need to make adjustments to your shooting style, timing, range, etc to compensate for this.

Thin Log Home white is like an entirely different foam, and thus deserves a separate paragraph. As mentioned by others, it's an excellent fit for standard (non-magic) CPVC. This foam is highly reliable, but I don't like it nearly as much as the fat version. It tends to squish and crumple more than the fat version and is a bit too narrow for #8 washers if you care about exposed metal (you should). It is slightly more responsive to heat, so you have to be careful not to expand it too much. Expanded foam via heat will lose its firmness in the barrel and won't perform as well or fit in your CPVC anymore.

MHA pink foam is the best performing thin foam that I have encountered. It's seriously dense and resists heat better than it looks like. Because it is highly dense, but not totally stiff, this foam is the easiest to work with when burning holes and making domes. It doesn't push back against the glue gun, but it also keeps the hot glue contained without losing the sidewalls, which is excellent. This foam doesn't have the longevity of white, if you step on it during play, those darts will deform more than white ones. I've also found that it weathers poorly. However, it's got one of the highest recovery rates in all-weather (white won't come back in the snow!) and in all-terrain. This is a double edged sword, because being easy to identify on the ground also means easy to identify in the air. Pink is among the easiest darts to see being shot at you, so it's harder to hit someone with pink than most other foam colors. Availability is the main drawback of this stuff, you can only get it from MHA and Kane won't sell it to you if you want to make slugs or conventional domes with it.

Best Materials beige (Hot Rod XL) is the cheapest option out of all the good foam varieties. A full 2,500 ft spool is only around $130something when on sale, which blows away everything else. A spool is a lifetime supply of foam for 99% of nerfers, you'll never need to buy darts again. You can order it by the foot for I think 15 cents a foot, 11 cents if you buy enough feet. This is usually a fat foam, not for your standard CPVC barrels unless you stretch it. It is pretty stiff and pretty dense, leading to pretty good heat resistance and pretty good performance. White and pink will outperform beige, but not by enough to matter in play. When I switched from white to beige, there was no noticeable difference. I did lose some feet off the end of my max range, but I don't engage at max range anyway. The main downside to beige is dart recovery. You will readily find white and pink, but good luck finding beige. Then again, it's dirt cheap, so who cares, just make more? I find that this foam works best in fat fits and weights like mentioned in the first paragraph. You could run #6s with this, but those darts will not be stable in the wind and you won't hit anything, relative to your potential hit percentage with #8s. Being relatively dark, beige is fairly difficult to see in the air and is good for hitting people with.

I can't tell what the Amazon foam actually is from those pictures, so I can't comment on its attributes.

==================================
If I were you, I would honestly buy Best Materials beige and change barrels. You could still use an RSCB, but I'd move to an aluminum or brass barrel instead of CPVC. The reduced friction would allow you to have a longer, more accurate barrel. I was a CPVC pump-action springer guy once, but aluminum performed noticeably better, so I never went back. Note that when using fat foam and metal barrels, the dart fit logic tables are reversed, you want a slightly looser fit for a high power springer (not loose, but looser than you normally would use) and a tight fit (much tighter than you would normally use) for a high power air blaster. I don't know why, but these have given me the best performance (read: intersection of range, velocity, and consistency). Your results may vary.

*But, Rob, half that advice is utter bullshit! My x variety of foam is so much better or my y barrel with z fit is better* These are personal observations from years of handling these foams and fighting with and/or against them. Your results may vary.