how much foam

[(Michael R)Nyona Lake Taxidermy Studio]

how much foam should i use to cast an elk form. i was thinking of using the canned foam.  

[George Roof]

Michael, first off, you cannot use canned foam for forms.  Canned foam is reactive to air and it continues to expand for days or weeks after it's been set because of that.  It's also not rated(i.e. 8, 10, 12 pound) to let you know the tensile strength of it.  There are many weights of foam from the solid foam we use for casting heads to the flexible foam used in archery targets.  Manikins take a middle ground grade. One pound foam is used for packing material and crushes easily.

Accepting that, you can see the actual amount of liquid two part foam required will depend on the strength you choose.  One quart of one pound foam might fill and elk form where it would take a gallon of 8 pound foam to fill the same form.

[bill@hogheaven]

Weigh a form & then weigh out the same amount of foam. This seems to work out for any of the 2 part foams available from taxy. suppliers unless its specified as a loight foam for habitat work.

[Laurier]

Micheal: George hit the nail on the head. For a elf using 2.3 lbs foam you would use approx 9 lbs of foam total

4.5 lbs A  4.5 lbs B
If you sprayed foam in a bag and sealled it up ( tide a knot )  and leave it , it will not cure , as George said it takes air to cure.

spray foam will expand 40 %  and 2 lbs     2 part foam will expand ( free rise )  25 times its volume.

[(Michael R)Nyona Lake Taxidermy Studio]

so i think i got it now, so basically a 5 lb kit from WASCO would get me a form, a 20 lb would get me around four and so on and so on. thanks for the help and as soon as i get one cast i will post pics.

[Roadkill]

George, You saved a guy from making big mess, I would have love to see someone spray a bunch of Great Stuff foam into a form mold and Then wonder what the heck went wrong when he had ot clean it all out and get that sticky crap all over him. The picture is priceless isn't it?
Anyway, Make sure you have plenty of clamps on the mold, and that the mold is thick enough, because if you put to much in, it will blow out. Make sure there is no moisture in the mold either. It seems to react with the foam.