A friend has a “Land of The lost” themed party coming up so I have been working on some props for decoration.
A “Crystal Matrix” control panel, Sleestack Skulls and a Pylon
The Crystal Matrix looks like this:
I cut most of it on the XC out of 19mm plywood from Home Depot. Very nice stuff. I have them cut it at the store into to 24"x32" blanks that fit nicely on my 1000. It carves nicely with a 1/4’ downcut bit.
The main frame, the top is held in place with a rabbit joint, the sides with pocket holes using my Kreg jig.
Testing some aquarium stones as the crystals. Cheep but a bit too small.
More Crystal tests. Some 3D printed gems and Vase fillers. I think the sea glass vase filler is the closest in size and shape.
Testing glass paint. It actual works really well. It goes on pretty blotchy but evens out as it dries.
The pedestal using more plywood, a concrete tube form and 2x4 supports. I made sure to get kiln dried 2x4s so hopefully they won’t warp too much.
I made a bracket to align the 2x4s and the tube. Despite the tube being labeled 10" and listing its size as 10", it was not 10", more like 10.25", so I had to redo the bracket. Oh well I should have confirmed the inner diameter first.
After I made the pedestal I realized that the way I did it, with the box sitting on top, that the foam would existed past the box edge to cover the pedestal top. Not a problem, but if I wanted to put the box on a table without the pedestal the weight would be resting on just the foam. So I made up some trim to go around the edge under the foam to take the weight. This was not a problem as the sides were going to slope anyway. Originally I was going to have 2 layers of foam so it didn’t change the look at all.
Here is the foam after it has been cut with a hot knife and the seams covered and sealed with some wood glue mixed with sawdust.
The plan is to cover the whole thing with the mixture to give it a “Stone” texture. This will also seal the foam so I can use spray paint on it.
I initially used sawdust (the finer dust, shaken through a screen) because that is what I had. It works well as a putty, but it is still a little courser that I would like for this project.
I need to seal the foam and cardboard no mater what. But I am thinking maybe of using something else for the texture.
I could use stone spray paint, It mostly depends on how much a can will cover.
I was thinking of maybe fiberglass resin and sand?
I was considering coating it with resin anyway. I want to weather proof this as much as possible because the post event storage plan is to leave it out in the back yard somewhere. 
I had originally planed on gluing the stones down. Now I am considering adding some recesses for the stones to sit loose in. Gluing is easier so it is probably what I am going with. If I ever made a interactive version, movable stones would be nice.
Mad scientist labs makes a neat interactive LED array kit that would be really nice to use. But it is too expensive for my budget right now
