To: Don Johnstone who wrote (4 ) 7/5/1999 5:33:00 PM From: Red Arrow Respond to
I just saw your post, and got some feedback from a Du Pont guy who was in foamed plastics R&D. After he stopped laughing, he said that this is the type of nonsense that gets plastics a bad name after people find out the truth about this type of hyperbole. Here's a fax he sent me with a quote from their handbook on foamed plastics - "people often think that a foamed plastic part is stronger than a solid plastic one. Substitution of a gas void for solid polymer is unlikely to yield a stronger product........property loss is 1 to 1.5% times as great as the percent of density reduction...particularly in impact strength...our experience indicates that physical properties.... decline linearly with density reduction down to about 20% and then ... at a steeeper slope down to about 40%... " He says no need to visit the company to check them out, just ask them to send you copies of the physical property data with their stuff compared to a solid plastic part. Most companies send out the physical property data on anything new that will show their claims are valid, and if they cannot send you the data you can figure it out from there youself. If their Morfoam product is so great then the property data will show that, and will not tell you any secrets about their stuff. As I understand it, and it seems logical, if it does what they claim where the the supporting test results? I got taken in by the Starlite superplastic which was supposed to beable to with stand a nuclear bomb burst, but not for long when the "inventor" would not show any test report results, the US government said they would love to see data, and if they had tested Starlite in the real conditions it would be hard to hide the mushroom cloud and blast! No data, no good, he says. It's bit late maybe but, best I can do.
