now is the time to enter a demolition derby! it took some effort, but i was able to wedge about 120 cubic feet of beans into my minivan after i took most of the seats out. no airbag needed! on your drive back from the foam factory you'll be about as safe as you've ever been in your motor vehicle. remember: regrind = recycling! how to find a styrofoam products maker! they do not seem to like to list themselves under "foam" in the phone book, that seems to be reserved for the lowly urethane-foam folks only! instead you'll want to look under "packaging & shipping materials" or whatever else they might be making out of styrofoam, such as architectural trim. they had a huge mountain of them behind their factory! the fancy places online that sell beanbags will tell you that virgin beads have a better feel in the beanbag, but my sofa seems perfectly nice with the regrind. my local foam mfr (Bay Foam in Hayward CA) sells 35 cubic foot bags of regrind for $10 each. virgin costs about 10x as much as regrind, usually more than you'll want to spend on some lunatic project you read about on Instructables. usually they will have both new beans ("virgin beads"), and used beans ("regrind"). the technical term for what you want is "expanded polystyrene beads" or "EPS beads" for short. getting the beans will be a fun excursion unto itself, as you can see below. try the website to find a list of EPS manufacturers around the country. where to get the beans! you will need a lot of beans, so the best thing is to find a local styrofoam (EPS) products manufacturer. beanbag beans are sold by the cubic foot, so you'll need about 50 cubic feet of them. calculate the volume of the sofa (a cylinder): pi * radius * radius * length. for the earthworm type used as a backrest, you may want to pack it 100%. a normal beanbag chair is not this full, but the sofa will not hold its shape unless it is nearly full. You'll want to fill the beanbag at least 80% full of beans. there's a good selection of fabrics for $4-8 per yard at my local fabric store. use something sturdy! i made mine out of corduroy. for the recommended "garden slug" sofa you'll need a spool 3 feet wide and 32 feet long. Oh yes, so your spool of cloth must be as wide as the diameter of the sofa. months later you'll discover your little dog toto buried in the folds of the jellyfish. and it is just way too huge for a normal room, it tends to envelop everything else in the room. the problem with the banana slug that i built - and the reason i don't recommend it - is that when it is filled enough to not be a jellyfish, it no longer will fit through a doorway. It turns out there is also a jellyfish sofa, the jellyfish is what you get when you don't have enough beans in the bag to keep its shape and it just squooshes out all over the floor. Sofa model diameter length-pea 3 feet 3 feet (standard beanbag chair)garden slug 3 feet 8 feet (recommended)banana slug 4 feet 10 feet (bad! diameter is too big!)centipede 3 feet 30 feet (around-the-room sofa)earthworm 1.5 feet 8 feet (back rest only)millipede 3 feet 1000 feet (block party sofa) there are several possible sizes of sofa you can make, with convenient names: where a standard beanbag-chair is a sphere (ball), the beanbag-sofa is a cylinder shape (tube with end caps). You may need to brush once dry to restore the texture.The size of your sofa determines how much cloth you need. Pat the fur down with a towel or kitchen paper, then leave it to dry flat in the shade. Then, add some diluted fabric softener or conditioner to the faux fur, then rinse the fabric through again. Rinse it under cold tap water, then use your hands to wring out the fabric gently. Put the fabric in a sink and clean it with warm water and mild detergent, then leave it to soak in the soapy solution for 30 minutes to an hour. Then, you’ll need to wash the fur case by hand. When you want to do a deep clean on your furry bean bag, use your vacuum’s rubber-bristle brush attachment to remove debris and dry dirt out of the fur. Avoid rubbing the fabric as this can cause the furry texture to become matted, fade the color, and set the stain in further. If you only need to get out a minor stain, use some dishwashing liquid and a damp cloth to blot the mark, then rinse the fabric with some cold water and let the bean bag dry. There are several ways to clean furry bean bags.
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