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[mark venn]

Hi everyone, haven't built a board for over a year now, so was a little surprised when I started to rough shape my B and Q (home depot)blank, to find it very different to the last one I bought.  The beads do not seem to be as well fused as I am used to.  Density seems the same, but it seems more prone to bits breaking off when sawing and planing.  Anyone have any ideas?  Maybe the manufacturers are making these sheets in a different way?
Do you think I have anything to worry about? This will be a full balsa sandwich board.
Cheers
Mark

[SURFFOILS]

 Hi Mark, Brett Jr. here, EPS is a funny thing, I went to an EPS factory here in Queensland , Aust to find out about getting custom blanks done and they said that sometimes there are "dry" blows where the beads are crumbly and the blank has poor consistentcy or that they sometimes the beads are too small or too large, and I have seen this a few times.
Its kinds a regular thing for me to see odd density and beads in EPS.
 SO I switched to an XPS made in Dubai because of the consistency but I recently read that Paul Cannon, from here, didnt like XPS for a few reasons.
 So in the end I have no solutions but  to say that if you can deal with the drawbacks of either foam then youve found your home.
I did like the uniform density and non-tear shaping of XPS so I went with that, but I always heed the advice of people like Paul Cannon who knows more.

[lemat]

There is many differents qualities for EPS, depend of fuse process and bead quality. Here in France we can find really good EPS quality (we have world leaders of EPS production). At same density EPS made for packaging is better than for insulation. Atuacores.com sell good quality EPS.

I use XPS for rails and repair some S-core. Small delam is still a problem when ding. I prefer EPS, costless and easier to work with for me.

Sorry for my frenglish