Anyone know where I can get the Dow Blue foam or the other pink brand in and around San Diego? Home Depot and Lowes don't have it. I haven't tried Dixieline yet. I'd be willing to go to LA or Riverside if I have to.
Home depot may be able to order it, I know that I can't find it here in Monterey and the train shop in Santa Clara told me "good luck" in trying to find it. If Home depot won't order, you might try a local mom-and-pop hardware store. Or if your really in need, a trip ot Arizona or Nevada may be in order.
I think I remember reading that someone in SoCal found the foam board at a Home Depot Pro-Line(?) store. This was in LA I think. We don't have the Home Depot Pro stores here in TX so I am just going from memory here.
If the big box stores don't have it, or won't order it, look in the Yellow Pages for insulation dealers. They should have it. It's where I got mine before the big boxes stocked it.
Hmm, I'll look into a proline store. I'm gonna try and avoid a trip to Yuma without proof they have it. I'll check local dealers too. Unfortunatly, without it being in a major store, I'll have to wait till next weekend to pick it up.
There's a supplier in Orange County: [SIZE=-1]Southwestern Insulation 12851 Nelson Street Garden Grove, CA 92640 Tel: 714-530-2980[/SIZE] I see you're in Carlsbad, you're not terribly far from OC. It's off the 22 fwy. They have blue foam, not sure about pink. I just called them today, they definitely have blue in stock but couldn't give me the prices (they said they'd call me back but didn't...) If you manage to find prices (for 1" and 2"), please post it here.
Thanks I'm in the process of moving to LA County and I had a relapse of the train bug but I haven't been able to do anything about it with this move pending. Now I at least know where to start looking. You'd think one of the train shops would get a stack of this stuff and spread the word. You know that anyone who came in to buy some foam would be leaving with a lot more!!
AWESOME! I can get to garden grove. It'll have to wait to the weekend though which makes me a sad little engineer. One of my other hobbies has been saltwater reef keeping and in that, you're really really picky about the mineralogical composition of the sand you use. You want it to be Calcium carbonate (gulf sand) Pet shops charge out the wazu for the stuff, but it turns out that HD's in the south eastern US sell the same exact stuff as their playsand, because their sand sources are from the gulf. They were of course charging a couple bucks for a 50lb bag. So what ended up happening is that hobbiests in the southeast would buy pallets of the stuff and then send it to hobbiests elsewhere for cost+shipping. I bet the same could be done with foam. I personally don't have the space to store it, but I bet someone does.
Don't mess with the big box stores. Lowes' would not order anything for me and Home Depot only what they stock. I got all my foam, both 2" and 4" from http://www.wicksaircraft.com/. Great site, good folks to do business with and fast shipping. Check out the web site. I like the 4" and have it under the entire layout. Doc
If you live where the foam is readily available, you might want to consider buying the sheets you need and adding them to the load in the moving van. Ed
Can you post to a specific product link. Everything I found was ridiculously over priced and too small.
or home builders.... they usually can point you in the right direction. Lowes usually had the 1/2" and 1" stuff which can be layered, but I like the 2" personally as it provides enough stiffness, but not so thick. If you're layout is mostly flat, the 4" is probably better.
This is the page where the foam products are listed. I paid $32.95 for a 4' 2X8 sheet of blueboard. If you count up what it costs to glue up 3/4' or 1/2" or 1" (if you can find it) this is a resonable price. And no mess, no foam adhesive expense. http://www.wicksaircraft.com/catalog/product_search_results.php/search=c3R5cm9mb2Ft Doc
Thanks, that was better. It still seems a little high, but I won't judge until I check out the prices locally. I feel like 4x8x2" should be under $20 a sheet which can be cut and glued into the same thing. I'll have to double check though, because it's been a while.
YoHo, I had the same problem in the SF bay area. Your LHS might know of a source, or you could try lumber supply yards that contractors use. That's where I found mine. Good luck, Phil
The newest train shop in town does. They're called Temple City Toys & Trains: 9087 Las Tunas Drive Temple City, CA 91780 626-614-8094 Phone 626-614-8085 Fax Store hours are Wednsday-Saturday 10am-6pm and Sun 10am-4pm They sell 1" and 2" blue foam, priced $16.99 and $31.99 respectively.
Here's one solution Here's one solution: http://www.nu-linestructures.com/newsMain.htm And while you're there, you can pick up some track or rolling stock, too! I saw that they had foam on their instore layout, so I emailed and asked where they got it and why don't they stock it? THEY DO!!! Here's the email reply I got earlier today Thank you for your comments We do have a number of contacts from which we get the foam. I can not go into too many details however, the foam you see in the photos is for sale. The prices are $16.99 for the 1" 2'x8' and $32.99 for 2" 2'x8' sections. These prices appear high but there is little to no profit to be made from the sale of this material. We understand that it is hard to find the extruded foam in Southern Cal. which is why we are carrying it in stock. Our goal is to help out wherever we can. We currently have 1 sheet of each left in stock. Let me if you want more as we will be putting in another order here shortly. Bill Walker, President Temple City Trains and Toys Oops, someone beat me to it.
I may head by Temple, It's a little for if they've only got one or two sheets in though. I called southwestern insulation today to see if they had weekend ours. The lady on the foam was rude and crabby, so I won't buy from them for sure now. I got a lead on some Loews in the OC having Dow fanfold style foam which may mean they have the regular Styrofoam. I'll report back. If not, I may be ordering from that Plane parts website.
The reason you can't easily find the foam in CA is because its not use in construction around here. Its not up to code due to earthquake related building codes. Being a wargamer for years, I've gone through the hunt several time since the 90's. Occasionally I've heard of a HD or Lowes ordering it but usually not. Not sure if its a Store manager thing or the policy changes. We used to have it ordered out of state. It's always good to find a local supplier. We would get 4'x8'x2' to make gaming terrain boards.
