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Best tool for carving brick joints in pink foam

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2K views 16 replies 9 participants last post by  Jack Skellington 
#1 ·
I'm prepping for building cemetery entrance stone columns. Planning for 1" pink foam over a wood frame. Brick pattern is pretty simple - 6" tall bricks with a relatively smooth surface to match an existing structural retaining wall.

I have a variety of tools available for the carving - Hot Wire Foam Factory Pro Kit, Dremel with various carving bits and guide attachment, etc. I've used none with this type of foam carving (the Hot Wire Kit was a gift in prep for building my own tombstones at some point and I use the Dremel and carving bits carving foam pumpkins).

I don't want to over-engineer it, and I don't want to get frustrated using the wrong tool for relatively straight brick pattern.

Recommendations based on what I have available?

Picture of the wall look I'm trying to duplicate.

Plant Property Road surface Brickwork Brick
 
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#7 ·
The Dremel with that cone shape guide you posted is perfect for setting depth and giving a wide enough flat surface. I used the same thing when doing my grout lines.
The foam cuts extremely easy and fast with the dremel.

A small chamfer bit would be perfect to get the profile your bricks need. Run that first along your measured and drawn lines. It will create the profile for one side of two bricks at the same time along that line. After you chamfer, you can come back with a straight bit run straight down the middle of the chamfer to separate each brick. Or, just paint the grout lines and call it a day.
 
#8 ·
The Dremel with that cone shape guide you posted is perfect for setting depth and giving a wide enough flat surface. I used the same thing when doing my grout lines.
The foam cuts extremely easy and fast with the dremel.

A small chamfer bit would be perfect to get the profile your bricks need. Run that first along your measured and drawn lines. It will create the profile for one side of two bricks at the same time along that line. After you chamfer, you can come back with a straight bit run straight down the middle of the chamfer to separate each brick. Or, just paint the grout lines and call it a day.
Perfect - thank you. I'll test with a scrap piece of foam - but the idea I had was to set up a straight edge related to my intended grout line to use as a guide, and then run down it with chamfer, and then carve deeper for visual, if needed with a straight bit. I did order the plunge router attachment, as well as the chamfer bit.

My first coat of paint will be sprayed on, so hoping the approach gives me a deep enough and dark enough joint line.
 
#10 ·
Pretty sure I have that bit with my foam pumpkin carving bits - I'll play with a few options for the right combination with the chamfer bit to get the looks I want. Of course, I need to remind myself that this is a prop, and looking close enough is going to be good enough... lol
 
#12 ·
I think it depends on what type of look you are going for. I want all my "masonary" to look old and heavily weathered so I mark out the joints and just use a hand saw and make two cuts one at the top of the and one at the bottom and then twist the saw slightly to pop out what is between and that gives you a textured joint that looks more aged rather than what you would get with a dremel or router. I will also make the joints uneven and sometimes fill them back in a bit so it looks like they were tuck pointed. I usually start with painting all the mortar joints dark grey and then dry brush in some lighter gray so the mortar has depth. When I paint "bricks" I take a medium size plastic dish and around the edges I use black, white, ochra, burnt umber, seine, coral pink. and I have a jar of water and use a the water to dilute the paint so it's a bit watery and then simply mix the different colour to get different shades so the bricks are not all one uniform color. I usually use two very small chip brushes one for the bricks and one for the mortar. It takes longer to go the route but for me it gives you a really aged and realistic look which is what I'm after.
 

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#13 ·
Love it!

Because so much of our front yard has existing brick on the retaining wall, I want the columns to look similar to those - as if all of the brick work is part of the scene. The fence and other features will bring more of the gothic graveyard feel to the scene. Or at least, that's what I'm hoping....
 
#14 ·
My 2¢ is for a simple straight cut like this, use an exacto or utility knife and a straight edge. Those cheapo ones with the long break away section blades work good for this because you need to keep the blade sharp and fresh often. I don't like using a router due to the amount of dust it creates and it's just more micro plastics to get all over the place. That said, I have a current project working at the moment that i have used a router int soem edges, but for detail i like to do with a knife of some kind. i feel it gives greater control also over a router
 
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