Lessons Learned: The Styrofoam Suit

In the early 80's I visited a customer plant that was making laminated Styrofoam panels for walk in refrigerators.

They had set up a fabrication line using woodworking saws and shapers. The panels were sawed to slab sizes and the edges were shaped to make a deep tongue and grove detail on opposite edges. Another gang shaper was cutting 4 inch slots in the panels for the fastening locks. A large exhaust system collected the cut away foam shards.

At the time the new suit I was wearing was all or mostly polyester. It was a dark green color and I thought it to be pretty spiffy.

As I walked by the shaper that was cutting three slots at one time I tried to get a closer look at the fixturing and got with in a foot of the cutter. Immediatly a stream of foam particles jumped from the exhaust collector to my leg. Apparently the static electricity generated in the high speed shaping was exactly the opposite polarity of polyester suits. Within a few second I was covered with white fur.

Just them our escort said "lets go to lunch". I was horrified, how could I go out looking like a snowman! I tried to sweep the foam pellets off my pants but with every swipe they turned around in the air and came back. The more I swiped the better the foam clung to me. If I took a handful and let it go at arms length it came back and stuck to my jacket.

I gave up in desperation and followed the others out the door. I was ready for the ridicule that was certain to follow my ridiculous appearance. But, as soon as we walked outside into the sunlight and breeze, the static charge dissipated and the 2 lbs of foam I was carrying fell off.

I never wore that suit again