Displaying knives in foam rubber?

G

Gary G

Joined
Mar 29, 2006
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I'm searching for the foam rubber (egg-carton style) to line the bottom of my display boxes. I checked around town yesterday (Walmart, Dollar General, Sporting Goods, etc), but cannot find a vendor. Anybody know where that type material is sold at a retail store?
 
mete said:
www.mcmaster.com has it and the case maker www.pelican.com has it but I don't know about retail stores .Perhaps a camera store ?
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Bigger camera stores will usually sell the 'Pick'nPluck'(tm) foam insert replacements for Pelican cases, but also try a fabric/sewing store if you're looking for the convoluted (egg-carton look) foam sheets that you can then cut up to fit your own cases. (The only problem is that those sheets are usually white foam, not dark grey.)
 
Some foam can encourage corrosion over time. After a couple painfull lessons, I now keep fabric between the foam and the steel
 
Thanks all. I'll take the fabric advice and try the options. I failed again today at several options.
 
Mahoney said:
Some foam can encourage corrosion over time. After a couple painfull lessons, I now keep fabric between the foam and the steel
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I'll second that, a lot of celluloid react with the egg crate foam.

I had some older celluloid knives stored in a case with the foam and the foam left dimples in the celluloid scales and also left a haze on the polished scales.
 
T. Erdelyi said:
I'll second that, a lot of celluloid react with the egg crate foam.

I had some older celluloid knives stored in a case with the foam and the foam left dimples in the celluloid scales and also left a haze on the polished scales.
Click to expand...

I believe that is why most 'retail' cases are velvet or cloth lined.
The foam they use in them is usually more of an open cell for the
nested look and closed cell for the custom molded.

mike
 
moving-van.jpg
 
I tried the UPS shipping places and some office-supply shops. No luck.

I did not know about celluloid and foam, but that's one more reason to avoid older celluloid knives in a collection (they also lead to corrosion of neighbor knives).

I wanted foam to give the nested look AND to limit shifting of the knives during travel to shows. I make my own display boxes, and I've used felt bottoms. But the knives shift and must be realigned after each drive in the car.

Other suggestions??
 
Major metropolitan areas will have foam dealers. There's a bunch in my phonebook anyway. Camping stores will have foam pads for sleeping on, it's an expensive way to go, but if it's all that's within driving distance... Linen stores should have "mattress topper" foam pads. Walmart might have both in the respective departments. You can get rigid foam insulation sheets at the "big box" building material stores, that could work as well if you cut out compartments.
 
Thanks, Mahoney. I think I found the right thing. Walmart had some blue-foam sleeping pads with egg-crate pattern. But they were out of stock. I'll know soon if that works. Supposed to be just 1" thick, so it should be right. In my small town that seems to be the best bet.
 
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