September 7th 2006

Now that the interior wall panels are all completed and hinged together, I can start working on the parts of the haunt that are a bit more fun...

Driving home a few days ago I noticed a nice sized piece of foam insulation lying by the on ramp to the local bypass.  It was run over and a bit banged up, but nice and thick, so I decided to pick it up and see if I couldn't make a decent grave stone out of it.

Deciding on a design is one of the hardest parts for me.  I spent about 20 minutes or so browsing through images of gravestones on the internet and stumbled across one that I thought might look good in my graveyard.

First step was to do some sketching on the foam to see how big I could make the design with the piece I found.  There were a couple of big tire tracks across either end of the board, so I ended up putting my design roughly between them.
Second step was to cut out the rough design using a foam board heat cutter.  I like using the cutter instead of a knife or saw.  The edges come out really nice and clean and there's so much less effort involved.  I picked up my latest foam cutter at a store that carries flower arranging supplies & the Styrofoam that goes along with it.
Third step involved a lot of sanding to bevel the edges and remove some of the damage from the surface of the foam.   I'm a big fan of detail in my grave stones.  I could have left it just sanded and started applying paint, but I decided to give the gravestone a bit more character...
I used quite a bit of masking tape.  I taped off the edges of the gravestone and masked a few areas inside that I thought would give the gravestone a bit more character.
Here's where the fun part starts.  I found out the hard way that you can't spray foam board with solvent based paints.  It eats at the foam board and leaves a rough and pitted surface behind.  In this case, that's exactly what I want to happen.  I want the exposed foam board to be recessed and rough (almost chiseled looking).
When the tape was peeled away I was left with a very impressive looking design that had a lot of texture to it. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to start the painting/aging process because I got pulled into another project.  Hopefully I'll get some time to finish the gravestone project tomorrow.