With all the Marlin I'm gonna be spearing I decided to fill my Ronstan float with foam, so I headed off to hardware house and returned with two cans of expanding foam.

After little thought I drilled a hole in the top of the float where my flag stand sits. A brief glance over the instructions and I was away, I pumped the Ronstan with one full can. While I was waiting I decided to read the instructions more carefully, it claimed that the foam would expand to 300% in an hour! An hour later I checked the float, I couldn't tell if the foam had totally filled it so I went into the bathroom to see if the heat lights would reveal any empty gaps.

With no luck I thought to myself "what the hell" as I inserted the nozzle of the second can deep into the Ronstan. Moments later I'd emptied the second can. By this time all the foam had left the can but the sound of compressed gas was sill hissing. Confused I slowly started to pull the nozzle out, the clear tube was full of bubbles racing around violently, I took a step back and pulled the can out......

Foam exploded out of the little hole I had drilled and was shooting everywhere like a volcano! After the initial blast the foam started to ooze down the Ronstan like liquid hot magma, the sound in the room was muffled by the hissing of the toxic gases seeping out.

To make it worse we had guests coming to stay the following day and my mum had made a valiant effort to make the bathroom spotless. I was in deep trouble! So I did what any brave soul would do, I quickly turned off the lights and quietly backed out of the bathroom concealing the mess behind closed doors.

I had no time to contain the situation as I was late for our club meeting, as I was driving I couldn't help but laugh at what just happened and prayed that my parents wouldn't use the bathroom before I got back.

When I returned home I was relieved not to hear my parents angry voices yell "MICHAEL!" As I approached the bathroom door I could hear the Ronstan still hissing away. I wondered if I would even be able to open the door with all the foam blocking the way! When I opened the door I was happy to see that most of the foam had dried which made it easy when I was scraping it off the ceiling. I finally contained the spill and went to bed with the soothing sounds of a hissing Ronstan. I woke up this morning to find the foam hand finally stopped oozing out. This is one DIY disaster I'll never forget, I'm just glad my beloved Ronstan is still in one piece!