Thread: My first prop

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My wife needed a fireplace for her VBS class at church,so I thought,"foam would be great for that".Their theme is a "Cowboy bunkhouse",so my design was for a stone fireplace(like one a cowboy would make from river stone).
The foam is 1" Perma R from Lowes.It's going to have a split log mantel,with two logs protruding from the "stone" to support it.I used a Dremel(from my decoy carving days),wire brush to shape the logs,and sandpaper.
I've carved the mantel and have one of the "fire logs" complete.
The sides are about 10 inches and will be installed to give it some depth.
Still have to make the inside firebox ,top,and hearth.
I'm going to build a fan operated "fire" to go inside the firebox,as well.
With a teenage girl,and a 5yo and 6yo in baseball,time is pretty limited and I have to get busy.
Yes,there are some tombstones that have been started in the pics as well

Looks great! Can't wait to see the finished product.

Looking very good! Great details!

That looks great so far! I can't wait to see the finished product. I just got volunteered by our church VBS committee to make some ancient Egyptian props out of foam as well as a prison.

Thanks everyone.I just ordered some "foam coat" this morning,so I'll get to experiment with that when it arrives.
fravak,I'm hooked on foam carving now.Be sure to post pics of your VBS props when you get them done.

WOW!!! That looks fantastic!! And I'm so glad you posted this. I'll be building columns soon, and I wanted them to look exactly like that type of stone!!! Great job!!!

Looking good so far. The stone work is turning nicely.

What color do you think it will be finished in?

darkmaster,Thank you!I think I'm going with charcoal for the grout and grey/blue for the stone.
creepycathy,Thank you too!My grout lines are little large because I wanted it to look like it was built by a cowboy.His first job is wrangling,so he wouldn't have tight grout lines like a professional would.For your columns,you could have smaller grout lines(if it was built by a craftsman) and save ALOT of foam removal.I just cut away the grout and then used the dremel at about 45 degrees to round each stone on the edges.Then I went back with sandpaper to smooth it out and take off a bit more foam.
When I was landscaping,we all would look at someone's grout lines on something like this.The smoother and smaller they were,the more professional the finish.Foam sure is alot lighter than the real thing.

Getting close to finishing the fireplace.Still have to touch up some wood grain and brush the foam beads off some places.Mantle ended up being about 1 inch off because of rushing to get finished.Sorry about the pics.Took them this morning and I didn't focus too well.I'll take some daylight pics too without flash.
After carving the stones and assembling the fireplace,I coated the foam with Drylock.Then I painted some of the stones brown and some blue.Then I cover the entire fireplace with stone spray paint.This gave some depth to the already painted stones and in the light,you can see a hint of color behind the stone spray.
I went with brown for the grout(cowboy theme again).Used the airbrush to paint the grout.
I layered foam and carved the logs and mantel.Then I painted them brown and airbrushed some wood grain and bark with black.Still need to go over the woodgrain with brown.
I didn't have time for the fan/fire,so I carved some flames out of foam and airbrushed it in.It looks lighter due to the flash.
All in all a pretty fun project.Just wished I had more time in my days to get things done.

Outstanding foam work! The detail painting on the wood is so life-like. Bravo!