Saturday, July 21, 2012

Expanding Foam!!!!!

I have been playing around with expanding foam this week, look:

     I was going for a swampy mouth of a cave kinda look. I realize it doesn't look super realistic, though i hope once i get the pothos and other plants to grow it it'll look better. Even with out the plants i feel the foam looks organic. The shapes did naturally occur for the most part so that helps.
      I did foam in some terracotta pots but I actually prefers the planters i made by simply carving some foam once it was dry. since this tank already had fish in it I did not foam directly onto the tank, instead i had to glue the pieces in place later. This was dumb on my part and would have been much easier it i had simply relocated the fish for foaming the tank. But I prevailed.
      I used crazy glue and black silicone. The super glue is not recommended for foam but I found it  held the pieces in place long enough for the silicone to skin and dry over night, so it worked for my purposes. Of course i used the liquid glue versus the water proof gel so things got a little runny and glue did hit the water. It skinned immediately and i scooped it out. Might want to shut power filters off for this, i use sponge filters so wasn't worried about things clogging and what not. After gluing i left the lid off the tank for a few day to let fumes rise out.
     I think all the folds and crannies will eventually build up the organic material that epyphitic plants will need. The foam structure it self will allow roots to anchor into it. Plecos are going in this tank so i made sure just the edges of the foam were under the water, i worry they could chew it up or at least scrape things off.
      I foamed onto a Plexiglas sheet i had and actually cut my face when the plexi broke. Because of this i would recommend foaming onto card board if foaming backgrounds or decorations for a filled tank, The foam should peel easily from cardboard or it can be soaked off once the foam hardens.
   

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