There are so many different grades/types of styrofoam. Most are SOFT and made up of loosely packed small beads - not good for making poppers - too light and can't sand it to shape. Foam bobbers are a hard styrofoam that works fine, but the shapes limit what you can make. I have found an old crab trap bouy that is hard and may have possibilities. Anyone else know what to use??

Have you gone the Walmart flip flop route?

Styrofoam
- Styro
= Foam
+ High Density
= High Density Foam, you git at rour local flip lop store

Crab trap buoy seems to be great stuff.

I have flip flops in almost every color. Wally world has some fluorescent colored ones this year - they just put them out. Flip flop foam isn't sandable though.

Do you have a Dremel tool?

Yes, I have a Dremel tool - does that help sand softer foam like flip flop foam?? What do you use to cut the foam cylinders when cutting flip flop foam??

BTW, the crab trap buoy is great foam to work with. Very dense and you can carve it and sand it.

Also, sometimes I ask a question to get others to think and maybe start making their own lures/poppers/flies.

Oh, I've never done it, but I've read about it on the intarwebz.

Take a look here for the technique.



That's just cruel.

Great Link, but you are limited to patterns that are essentially Round using a lathe technique. Of course you could cut the lower third off and then..........!!

I participated in a dremel bug swap 4 years ago and I was surprised and what some folks were able to make.

Here on some of the flies from that swap. The one on the top left and the one that looks like a Hula Popper are extremely well done. Please note, I did not tie these flies, I only tied one fly in this picture. This dremel techinique is more versitile that it looks (and it is a lot of fun to do.)




Rex

my only issue with the dremel technique is I cant get anything with any girth to hold together. when I try and glue sheets together they come apart in shaping, whats the secert?

You probably need to find some source of block foam instead of trying to glue sheets together, Wylie. That would give you more initial structural integrity. The flip flop suggestion above is one way to go and I'm sure there are others as well.

the recommended glue is 3M super 77 but it only works well on really smooth (ie; not porous) foam, super glue works pretty good, but thick foam blocks work best, they are available from Wapsai and most shops can order them for you (bottom left corner of p 28 http://www.wapsifly.com/pdffiles/wap/page%2028.pdf )

Here are the foam blocks, look about 2/3 of the way down the page.

http://www.bearsden.com/page352.html

If you want soft foam try ear plugs or the craft foam sheets found in craft store that can be cut folded etc. Stiff sandable foam try the pink or blue construction foam it is tight celled and you can usually pick up pieces at construction sites.

welcome aboard wchart