# A "Grave" Mistake



## Muffy (Sep 25, 2006)

Oh Boy ...that sounds like a rough lesson to learn. I have not ever carved styrofoam yet but I have read in many places on the net how spray paint can mess up and eat the best of a carvers work!!

Sorry that happened Herman

Muf


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## Herman Secret (Oct 1, 2007)

It happens, or something like that... lol

There is little carving done in my process, all the work is down to the spray paint eating the foam, I was just over zealous with the spraying I guess.

So next time I am gonna make sure I have a darker paint than the white of the foam.

Anyways I may have salvaged the piece, by using Spackle to build up the letters that got eaten away. 

I will post a pic or two later on the progress thus far ....


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## Herman Secret (Oct 1, 2007)

OK, I may have saved the day and the tombstone... after a bit of work, some Spackle, paint and a little patience this is the finished article










I'm sure the paint effect could be better, which is something I am still working on, but at least I can say that I have completed at least one project


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## Muffy (Sep 25, 2006)

Oh My God Herman that is just to perfect! Oh it looks wonderful...that is a project to really be proud of! It looks so real!

How much time do you have invested in it?

Muf


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## Herman Secret (Oct 1, 2007)

it took about maybe 3 hours to mask out, apply the lettering and do the spraying then another 3 hours in total to do the paint job (waiting for each coat to dry) 

With Drying times for the spraying painting etc, I would say that one could be done in a day ... mine was done a hour or so an evening after work.

I think what took the most time was the drafting a design, and transfering that over to the full size project, making sure that the design was equal on each side.

Maybe I should do an how to on how I achieved an equal design ??


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## nightbeasties (May 22, 2008)

Very nice! I especially love the style, but it's realism is fabulous.


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## ryanlamprecht (Oct 8, 2009)

I am getting ready to make my first tomb stone. I think I am also going to use the raised letter look as well, letting the paint eat the Styrofoam around the letters for the etched look. What I was thinking of doing is using clear adhesive shelf paper; the kind that you line your kitchen cabinets with. It's like a really wide piece of plastic tape. From what I remember, it&#8217;s about a foot in width. I used this a few years back to mask out flames on a guitar I painted, and it worked really well. I painted the face of the guitar the color I wanted the flames to be, the I covered the whole face of the guitar with the shelf paper, then drew out my flames on it, then cut them out with a razor blade. When I was finished, I simply pealed the shelf paper off, leaving the flames in place. Then I painted the guitar again with the color the guitar would be, and then pealed off the remaining shelf paper to reveal the flames. This may work really well to protect letters in Styrofoam from the spray paint. Has anyone ever used this for making a tombstone?


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## raistlin_majere (Oct 17, 2009)

Herman Secret;bt214 said:


> OK, I may have saved the day and the tombstone... after a bit of work, some Spackle, paint and a little patience this is the finished article
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Oh wow!! Nice job!!


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