Darkness Photos Uploaded

[Greg Chrise]

That sounds like the best thing so far. Especially for things that don't quite fit or lay flat. Where did you get a gun?

[drfrightner]

We bought a hard coating gun system from a company at IAAPA.

I can look them up if you're interested. The gun itself wasn't very expensive but the materials you use to hard coat is...we didn't buy a big major system because we don't do much hard coating. A major system costs around $25,000.00.

The one we bought does the same thing but shoots lower amounts at a time, but it only cost around $700.00

Again another reason why Haunters should go to IAAPA in addition to Transworld.

Larry

[Greg Chrise]

http://www.thermafoam.com/index.html

2 hours of going through the Thomas Register and this is the best I can come up with. Even for your area kel, it seems most listings are fabricators of special packaging for other products and not the raw material supplier like these guys.

When I saw Larry's pictures I wondered if it floated? I'm weird that way. Well, it looks like you could float a car on it if the Darkness ever got flooded. It will support 60 pounds per cubic foot.

Sizes are 34" x 48" x 8 foot or 16 foot up to 30 foot. Of course it can be slabbed to any thickness less than that. There are old style pages and links to all kinds of applications.

The next closest place seems to be in Maryland with everyone else just being a distribution point. Are you farther than 350 miles from Fortworth Texas? It could be like how at the old shop when we need Pizza we have to drive down over the hill and wait for the pizza man at the end of his radius? Now we are closer to town.

Time for DINNER!

[Spookyfinder]

Thanks Greg! I mapquested here to Fort Worth and it's 422 miles. I'll go ahead and contact them and see if they can help us out. If not, I'm hoping they can direct me to a nearby distributor. Thanks again!!!

Kel

[PumpkinHead]

Larry,
Those foam sets are amazing, they look like something out of tomb raider. What will be going on in that blank white circle area? I am guessing a projection of sorts, something cool with CGI , am I getting close?
Great Work,
PH

[Duke of Darkness]

Larry, please do post the info on the gun. At that price there are so many things that could be done!

Dave

[drfrightner]

There are holes in the cave for our Rainforest Cafe Gorillas, and some saveges that Unit 70 made for me. One will be for an actor as well.

There will be TWO massive RUNNING water falls, the WHOLE ENTIRE area will be in TWO or THREE feet of water...we're building a cyinder block holding tank for the water.

In the middle of the room there will be an island with more cave formations with a massive buda statue with lasers in his eyes.

There will be an actor in a wet suit running around in the water jumping up grabing at peoples feet. All through the thing will feature a ricketing bridge...its a massive project.

Its the biggest set we've ever built.

As for the foam gun, ya I can get you the info!

Larry

[MDKing]

For the $700 hard coating gun, you must be talking about the one sold through Smooth-On, right?

Now you need a CNC routing maching Larry!

Allan

[Jim Warfield]

20 years ago I was offered a brand new fiberglass chop gun with resin barrel and strands for $1,200.oo, I didn't have the money, but if I would have bought it I would probably have been dead for 18 years as I would have stupidly sucked up the fumes using it as a complete novice.
A local business couldn't tone it down enough to do small jobs for them, it was built to do boat hulls 100's of feet long!
Everyone should seek to educate themselves as much as humanly possible before beginning a new process of constructing things using materials new to you.

[Greg Chrise]

I can see spending that much, I have two texture rigs that cost $800 each, but they get used all day long once or twice a week maybe 3/4 of the year and have for 15 years. Of course this is MY way of hard coating with acrylic cement.

As far as the foam gun Wipp suggested, it would be used to take Great Stuff foam and assemble the blocks of styrofoam, adhering it to the metal or wood structure and in between any joints in the styrofoam. It is just a pro gun for Great Stuff Foam instead of just the little straw that comes with the can. I mean it says "PRO" so it has to be good!

I don't know today's cost but the last time I got into a project I spent like $100 in $4 cans of Great Stuff and several of the cans got ruined because of setting up at the applicator over a few hours between doing something. This thing claims to keep cans alive for 30 days and can be cleaned up. Of course with their special can of cleaner but....

If pieces are kind of irregular the foam is expanding a little bit to fill in voids and it does pretty much stick to everything except teflon coated surfaces. I could see portable caves being a reality with this.

A brand new one is $39 and there are ones on ebay for half that. That's only a half a day of pool scraping!

Come on Dad can we get one of those?
Can we?
Can we?
Huh?

[Infoamtek]

Be careful with Great Stuff. Even if it doesn't burn, when heated up it will release a toxic cyanide gas.

[jason]

Its plane old styrofoam and yes its very flamable... New York Fire Shield sells something specifically for coating it. We will have to apply several coats of this chemical to ensure it will not be flamable.

The hard coating will addition protect the styrofoam from an open flame, every inch will be coated. But again it will be coated in a flameproof chemical sold specifically for this type of material.

Larry

larry, how much is this project costing you? i've always wondered how much something like this cost.

[Greg Chrise]

My experiments with most hardcoats is that what ever the substrate, it gets heated and smolders behind a shield in a certain time frame when exposed to open flame.

so we are talking styrofoam, Great Stuff, seasoned haunt panels and other goodies. Pretty much we are talking mobile home fire or all the nasty chemicals in a Greenburg Turkey!

Even in the wood there is glue, cured nitroglycerine, formaldahyde, aersnic. Then of course the wonderful bromide family to stop bugs and mold.

Of course I will be outside at the ticket booth but, I have seen this kind of construction in quite a few places. It would seem to me even calling the foam tuck would release a far higher percentage of Nasty gas as this would just be used as a joint adhesive?

Mine gets used off season to train fire fighters to search and rescue victims in house fires, they crawl on the floor to be out of any smoke and fumes, with pressured up hoses and tools of destruction in full gear pushing obstacles out of the way blindfolded trying to keep in physical contact and communicating with each other and find and drag the proposed victim out. It takes too long at least with out there being real fire to motivate them.

I have thought of setting up 1000 SF outside and then after the season torch it, ultimately retiring that portion of the haunt and sending it back to God. The event would scare the crap out of any firefighter, how quickly they would really have to work.

If I do this it won't be this year, maybe next year. I will have a video team and a spokes model.

[drfrightner]

Here is the gun we bought...

http://www.spraymaxliners.com/

[Duke of Darkness]

Thanks for the link Larry. Is the material that you sprayed the same material that they sell for bedliners, or did you buy the spray material elsewhere?

Dave