correct, blue foam is not a designed structual foam as compared to say klegecell or any of the others, but its cheap and available in thickness and easily shaped and is typically lighter. we made a 3.1 lb carbon bike frame with it and got carbon bike of the year in '91 from bicycling mag. call gougoeon they will be happy to tell you west is not for structual laminates but for coating and recommend their pro-set series as they did our buisness here. we still use the west for coating thermoform tools if our customers wont swing for an aluminum tool, but for structural lams the pro-set has a fairly impressive set of physicals. Jake, how would an autoclave help you apply pressure to the surface of your laminate against your foam? the vacuum bagging works well, but room temp resins dont require an overall higher atmosphere to go through their cure cycle typically which is what the autoclave is there for. I dont see how the author here is going to keep a normal atmosphere behind his foam to allow an autoclave to work as your recommending, but again, bagging is a great suggestion to him. and i'm sorry but i disagree that the floral pvc would be better. the cells are too easily crushed. it is possible to make a ligther lam with the blue foam, its a tighter cell and holds less resin. it is not as structural, but it sounds like our author is not looking for overal structure, but simply changing shape, and the way he would be encapsulating the foam, I feel the blue would be strong enough. I definitly would not use it for a structural item where I was relying on the core as in a flatter 2-d laminate such as the skin of the hull. i used klegecell in my carbon daggers.