Foam vs. Wood, what are your deciding factors?

[gafftapegreenia]

Recently a couple people have asked me why I have chosen wood for some applications, such as trim and baseboard, instead of foam. To me, wood is far more reusable than foam, making it a green choice. Foam is also much less durable than wood. In addition, foam limits me to a seam every 8 feet, whereas with board stock I can run 12 feet without a seam. While foam may be lightweight, and that counts in some situations, to me, if you are a theatre on a budget, the reusability of wood trumps the convenience of foam. Thoughts?

 

[MarshallPope]

Re: Foam vs. Wood, what are you deciding factors?

Personally, I gravitate towards wood for most applications. I usually only use foam in two situations: 1: depth - for cut shapes where I want more thickness than luan but don't want to deal with ply or if I need to cut more intricate shapes, I'll go with foam. 2: weight - Self explanatory. For example, for our last show I had to build a trolley car that was pulled by one actor in a horse suit. The entire upper was built with foam and cardboard tubes.

 

[JLNorthGA]

Re: Foam vs. Wood, what are you deciding factors?

I can go to Lewis Surplus and get 16' sticks of baseboard and trim in MDF (sort of wood) for a reasonable price. Admittedly it looks sort of strange on the roof rack of my Subaru Forester as I drive to the theatre. I can usually get something that will please the director in terms of shape. I can screw it to the flats and usually reuse it several times. My scarf joints are fairly reasonable. I often use 1 x 4 as trim. It looks reasonable. I can use it to build flat afterwards if it is in reasonable shape.

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

Re: Foam vs. Wood, what are you deciding factors?

Not to mention that most of the foamed plastic used on stages is explicitly prohibited by the Life Safety Code, but that doesn't seem to be an issue.

 

[Footer]

Re: Foam vs. Wood, what are you deciding factors?

Last time I used a lot of foam was just post 9/11 during the building boom when the price of stick and sheet lumber went up. Since the price has dropped on all that stuff so there is not as much of a reason to use it instead of sheet goods.

 

[Van]

Re: Foam vs. Wood, what are you deciding factors?

For anything below 8' or so I sort of agree, wood is the way to go because of abuse that molding is going to take from actors and set pieces bumping into it. For Crown molding, Capitals, Corbels, Dental's, ornate panels and the like, Foam is the way to go. Length? Yeah I can order 20' foam products, if I wanted to pay the shipping. Price? You cannot even begin to compare the price of something like an extremely ornate Cornice molding from Northwest Foam Products, to the exorbitant price of actually producing such a molding in real < including MDF> wood.
Green ? I'd do some looking and thinking. Think about the amount of energy required to Log, process, mill, sand and prep, ship, cut and assemble a piece of finger-jointed hemlock casement as opposed to the amount of energy require to take raw polystyrene, expand it, make a billet of foam, hot wire said billet, then ship cut and assemble. I realize there are other costs in there and that Oil drilling has a lot of associated negatives < Like wars and stuff> However, Foam is going to be produced as long as we use Oil for any other purpose. People are beginning to recycle more forms of PLastics and foams and this technology is only going to expand for the foreseeable future, imho.