Alan Malmstrom
12-13-2012, 07:23 PM
I finally had a chance to do a carving in pink insulation foam board and it was a learning experience. The foam carves nice but upon close inspection I found a lot of loose hanging fuzzies. Using a pointed eraser that is placed on a pencil worked really good for removing most of it but theres no way to get some of it off because it's just attached a little too good and I didn't want to take out chunks.
Using the stytospray is like spreading wood glue on the styrofoam. But it dries quickly and has a thick coating. It's almost like it doesn't thin down at all as it dries. The appearance is like that of frosting. It doesn't level off as good as I thought it would. It does level of to become smooth but it reveals various thickness appearances along the surface. And it tends to settle down to the floor of the carving instead of sticking to the higher artifacts. Affter the first coat there was a lot of little fuzzy peices of foam that stuck out. But I must say that the plastic type of material that it is, sands down very nicely between coats with dry times of 3 to 4 hours. If you were to work at it long enough and put enough thin coats on, you could in fact maintain a very nice smooth carved appearance. But it would be a lot of work.
I'm happy with the foam and styrospray 1000 but I might see what MDF board can do for this type of thing next time.
I used a plastic primer from rustoleum and covered it with two coats of exterior paint which seemed to smooth it out even better as I dabbed the brush on instead of stroking. I think this sign looks pretty good in the framed area in the front of my house (I just finished the siding and soffit and all). All white looks pretty good for this too.
I'm going to make another one with a different design for the spring and fall seasons.
5769657697
Using the stytospray is like spreading wood glue on the styrofoam. But it dries quickly and has a thick coating. It's almost like it doesn't thin down at all as it dries. The appearance is like that of frosting. It doesn't level off as good as I thought it would. It does level of to become smooth but it reveals various thickness appearances along the surface. And it tends to settle down to the floor of the carving instead of sticking to the higher artifacts. Affter the first coat there was a lot of little fuzzy peices of foam that stuck out. But I must say that the plastic type of material that it is, sands down very nicely between coats with dry times of 3 to 4 hours. If you were to work at it long enough and put enough thin coats on, you could in fact maintain a very nice smooth carved appearance. But it would be a lot of work.
I'm happy with the foam and styrospray 1000 but I might see what MDF board can do for this type of thing next time.
I used a plastic primer from rustoleum and covered it with two coats of exterior paint which seemed to smooth it out even better as I dabbed the brush on instead of stroking. I think this sign looks pretty good in the framed area in the front of my house (I just finished the siding and soffit and all). All white looks pretty good for this too.
I'm going to make another one with a different design for the spring and fall seasons.
5769657697