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Anyone ever tried this, Rockwork

1668 Views 8 Replies 8 Participants Last post by  Brandon Reuter
We want a cave like look in an area of the haunt. I was thinking of something lightweight and fireproof.
Has anyone ever made a shape out of chicken wire and covered it with foil?I had thought with minimal overhead support for the chicken wire and a covering of wrinkly foil is might look like rock. Spray it up a little with some rocky colors. How to fasten the foil to the wire is a question.
Is this just a crazy idea? I know it would be a little fragile but would also be easy to repair. And most important fireproof.
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The only issue I see is that your going for a cave look, which means people would be walking through it. Human nature shows that if someone walks through a cave and sees the rock they are going to touch it, which means they are going to damage something that isn't made to be touched and played with.
I haven't made a cave that way but my Halloween tree is foil over chicken wire. I don't know about rock but it makes good bark.
You could mix chicken wire and foam. Bust up a bunch of foam scraps, and start gluing them randomly to the chicken wire. Then use a few cans of Great Stuff to fill things in. Once it's all dried, use acetone in a squirt bottle, and a heat gun or propane torch, to deform and distress it. After your texturing starts to work for you, a couple coats of paint will be easy to add. The foam should be quite rigid and durable, and kids touching it won't wear it out as easily as aluminum foil.
Mostly I wanted to avoid foam as it is flammable. I guess I'll try a small section and see what happens. As far as kids touching it we just cut off the hands of the first one and the word gets around! :D
You could always paint it with fire retardant added to it. That would help a little and there is fire stop foam too. It will cost more than great stuff but will expand the same. I saw some at Lowes before.
eh, just don't catch it on fire and problem solved. ;) I think the foil would work out if you messed with it enough. then you could paint it with textured paint. i used old wood pellets that had gotten wet and turned to saw dust and mixed it in the primer for my stone pillars and it worked great. you could also use sand as well maybe even some of the chunkier sand. Now you have me curious, think ill experiment with some foil and paint to see what i could come up with.
why not just use large sheets of foam and carve it out? I could see chicken wire for corners and arches but instead of foil I'd use chicken wire, and spray foam (great stuff makes a fire retardant foam). I'd get the thicker pieces and use them most from home depot are 4x8 and come in a varity of thickness's. then you cover it in monster mud and texture it however you please. the end result should be a fairly light weight structure that would be safe for people to touch as long as they aren't pulling on it. Plus it can last for years. Now if this is going to be just for a single years use then I'd say yes foam is your best bet. But if you want something thats going to be up and down year after year spend the extra time and money for a better result. Just my opinion.
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