March 28 2004

Perforating Corecell

To save some money I bought plain (PL) foam panels and decided to perforate them myself. The many little holes are necessary for quality vacuum bagging. I made a nail board 4 feet long by 8 inches and drove nails through it so that they protruded from the other side by about 3/4". I lay one Corecell sheet at a time over a sheet of pink foam and used my own weight (180lbs) to drive the nails on the board through the whole thing. It takes me about 20 minutes per sheet. Thats a lot of (boring) work but it makes surprisingly good holes. I am being carefull to align the holes and the results are quite professional.

Is it worth it?

About $120.00 per standard A500PL sheet, plus about $0.20 /sq.ft. extra charge for perforated sheet. That's a difference of 32 sq.ft. x $0.20 /sq.ft = $6.40 per sheet, + tax = $7.40. At 20 minutes per sheet required for perforating by hand, it comes out to $22.20 per hour. Conclusion: You decide!!!

I perforated 22 sheets in 7 hours