paint for foam

Hi there,
Does anyone know of a spray paint that will not dissolve foam. I remember seeing some sort of latex based spay by Krylon. Has anyone been successful with this?[/b]

Vinyl paints will not typically disolve foam.

You can generally find a good selection of premixed vinyl paints at any auto paint store. They are typically used for automotive dashboards so they are very durable and semi-elastic.

You can also use a coat or two of gesso as a primer/sealer and then whatever spray paint you want over it.

why are you using styrofoam, instead of urethane foam? $$$?

time=$$$ why waste your time (even student time) trying to protect cheap foam? ureathane foam accepts, bondo, polyester resin, epoxy resin, lacquer and enamel paint, gesso, plaster… . … … .

Sorry ti resurrect this old post but I was having a hard time figuring out which foam accepts paint without a protectant?

I have yellow foam and it seems to accept the paint well enough but no matter how much I sand it with 220 grit it still remains quite porous, am I doing something wrong?

220 is too rough, you have to go with finer stuff…like 400-600 grit.
To make it non-porous you have to spackle-spackle-spackle, sand-sand-sand, spackle-spackle-spackle….sand-sand-sand, prime-prime-prime…sand some more…actually repeat the whole thing till the surface satisfies you…

Ok let’s say I am lazy and short on time could I thinly cover it with latex and then primer then wet sand? Would that work?

…well, if you have the time to experiment, yes…try it, sounds like it will work.
You can avoid using latex, if you sand foam with like 600 grit and then build up a couple coats of primer and wet sand it…

…you lazy ass :]

Whilel I can not deny my laziness, I love doing the work but I fear that trying to finely sand my fragile model (which is due on thursday) will either eat much of the time I need for painting and detailing, brake the model, or worse some combination of both. I was hoping there was step to bypass doing more sanding.

220 w/ any foam isn’t fine enough. You’ll definitely have to go down to 600 with the feather touch. Also depends on what foam, there are different density yella’s. Try to find a more dense one, it’ll be heavier than what you have now and will hold details better. I found one that’s about as porous and holds detail as much as blue REN but it’s easier to sand and isn’t as heavy. I wish I could give you a brand name, I borrowed scraps from a client, didn’t have the manufacturer info. Only use that overly porous stuff for general size/shape exploration studies. Once you have that figured out, go to ren. It’s harder to work (and more expensive) but the results will be better and you’ll spend less time w/ extra processes to paint it. Plus you’ll have a model that won’t crush when some idiot plays with it and doesn’t realize that it’s fake and that the battery cover won’t come off!