Halloween Grave stones and decorations

What material are those tombstones made of? Doesn’t appear to be wood

Is that foamular I see? I have one but have not tried to carve it yet.

Any luck @GaryBowden? I’m intrigued by Jacks cross =)

My wife is trying to find them as she was the one that did the drawing…

We should one day get sorted :slight_smile:

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do you have to seal them somehow to paint or just spray paint them?

Spray paint will eat into the foam so you either need to use house paint or seal the foam first.

Plain house paint works really well. (I always look at the clearance rack in the paint section)
Maybe glue on some peat moss and add some long strings of hot glue for webbing

But the plain foam is kind of fragile. So in places where I know people may touch the stones I like to add some kind of hard coat and texture.

I did a MDF tombstone last year and coated it with sand mixed with outdoor wood glue.
The sand worked really well to add texture.
I mixed in a bit of stucco color powder to try to give it a nice grey color. This didn’t work out too well as I used too much powder and it would up being almost black. The problem is the glue darkens as it dries, so when I mixed in the color it looked fine when wet. So keep that in mind when adding color.

The other problem I had was that the house paint I was using to paint the stone would not stick well to the dried glue. So the dried glue texture needs a spray paint primer coat first before using any water based paints - like on the letters.

Oh a side note the MDF stone has been sitting outside, behind the garage all year and seems to be in good condition.

I used MDF because no one local stocks full sheets of the fomular. ;(
I made it in 4 Layers, Back, Thick middle, Front (with cut text) and decorative frame
I did it this way so to save time as it was all 2d profile cuts instead of 3d or pockets.
I made the thick center section hollow to try to save weight, but the thing is still way to heavy. :frowning:
Next time I will take the extra effort to track down some fomular sheets.

FYI: I have tried a lot of different glow in the dark paints over the years, even making my own from powders. I have found that Martha Stewart’s Glow in the Dark Decoupage works pretty good. It takes 2 to 3 coats to match the ultra glow paint I got from the internet but it costs 1/10 the price and they have in stock local to me :slight_smile:

It takes longer but if you do a few dust coats with spray paint it won’t eat the foam just stay far away with the can.

Once the foam is sealed you can use any type of paint
Her are a couple of foam tombstones I did before my CNC days. Paint technique is the part to see


This was done with acrylic base coat. The black is spray laquer. Finally, touched up with gray acrylic

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Spray cooking grease. You won’t have motor oil to get rid of. used it to cast this. Form almost fell off itself.

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Spray Paint (from a can) will not work. (as already stated)
I use regular latex house paint and spray with my HVLP sprayer.
I feel it is a pretty cheap option. You can get the paint colored any way you want.
Then you can clear coat with a spray can paint.

Any type of oil. Mineral oil,spray Pam, wax. No motor oil

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Wow, thanks for the tombstones. Those are great. Now, you need to add some meshmixer tutorial videos on your site. :wink:

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I was huge into halloween props about 17 years ago. I used to use spray paint on foam to get the weathered look on it. If you did it lightly enough, the foam would eat away just enough to leave a “pebbly” look. I used a hot soldering iron to make the cracks. Once I had everything right, I’d use acrylic paint to paint the lowlights. In some cases, I’d mix epoxy resin and lightly brush it on to give it a hard protective shell.

For my tombstones, I learned to do a 2 layer system and would put 1/2" or 3/4" PVC pipe inside to be used over rebar for “hold downs”. I’ve also just skewered them with rebar and put into ground to keep from blowing away.

Phil I love you

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Stay away from him. He’s my goto guy first.

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@PhilJohnson STOOOOOOOP!! Haha. Hocus Pocus is my wife’s absolute favorite movie. Now look what I’m going to have to surprise her with whenever I get vcarve so I can do the 3D carvings. Haha

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Foamular from menards?

What bit are you using for the foam

I understand 2 flute spiral. What is 100% step down?

I have a skull candy dispenser I’m working on but have no time to carve. Anyone want to give it a try? wood base with a plexiglass top. thinking of having a spider or something you spin in the teeth for the candy to come out.

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