Cheap way to hard coat foam?

[brad]

Im looking for a cheaper way to hard coat a small amount of EPS foam, without buying a kit from Tigerfoam, or other companies.

I wonder if there are any products at Lowes/Home Depot that could be used for this. A product thats not made for hardcoating, but could give the desired result as a hard coat.

Im not looking to spend too much money, but I'm open to any ideas.

[Allen H]

Fiberglass (must paint foam first to seal it) or
Bondo (again paint first) or
Stucco/ mortar mix can be used (I mix elmers glue in 50/50 with the water) spray through a hopper or paint on or
paint a thin coat of gorilla glue on and mist with water (a little hard to getit uniform butyou can sand later) or
Elastomeric roof coating is fairly durable but not really hard or
Plastidip is a good protective coating
Without knowing the project or any detaqils its hard to say which one will be best for your particular application.
I hope that helped,
Allen H

[Spookyfinder]

Try a product called "Synergy" and a hopper gun! Can also brush it on if you prefer. -Tyler

[drfrightner]

Did you buy the DVD 'How to Detail Your Haunted House Part I'... if not grab that video because we showed all sorts of cheap and fast ways to do just that...

Also let me say there is REALLY NO way to HARD coat anything cheap... if you want it to be truely hard coated. You can hire someone to spray it for you with hard coat or you can have something gunited but its NOT cheap but those are the ways like Universal would use and or we do the same.

However we also use cheaper ways but it won't take the all out abuse that a haunt gets unless your customers can't touch it much then it might last a long time with touch ups.

We've had to touch up our synery stuff every year but its cheap and it looks great!!! In our new video How to Detail your Haunt Part II we are going to take thin pink foam and mix that with vac form and show you how to make some cool walls... we are NOT going to hard coat we are going to spray some stuff out with a hopper. That video will come out next month. The first video is out now.

Get the video www.hauntedhousesupplies.com

Larry

[Allen H]

Synergy is an acrylic synthetic stucco, its great because it can come pretinted to your base color. It runs about $65 per five gallon bucket. It dries a little spongy but does protect the foam.

thats a close up of the bucket
and here is me using a hopper like nightgore recommended

Im afraid they dont sell it at home depot or lowes, But I get mine at a stucco suply house in Dallas. I can giva ya the info if your wiling to drive...and I'll buy ya lunch.
Here is my castle that I built with foam and coated with senergy

to get scale here is me and my friend by the big doors

Allen H

[drfrightner]

Its a cool product on in our video we show you what we use it for and how to spray it... just keep in mind it will NOT SAVE anything or PROTECT ANYTHING that people can touch or rub against. The stuff will chip off, break off in bits or whatever. Its not meant to really hard coat something its used for stucco roofs or whatever, texture for walls and protection but its not meant to have 40,000 people running into and touching it every five minutes.

We use it for lots of things... I like Allans pictures and what he's using it for is right on target tombstones, facades and stuff like that but again nothing people can run into!

Larry

[Allen H]

One trick Ive used is to fiberglass the walls inbetween 3' and 6' (where most folks hands rest) then senergy over that. that way where they touch is good and rigid but you dont have the cost of Fiberglassing the whole wall on both sides.
If your doing walls (dosent sound like you are) then another trick is to make the first few feet (like 8) of each new texture really well hardcoated then use synergy from there on till the next texture. folks will do their wall knocking in the bait areas and assume the rest is is rigid. I plasterd a few ares in my laser cave last year that screamed "touch me" and the rest of the straight ainted foam went unmolested through 48,000 customers.
Allen H

[MDKing]

Allen,

Nice looking work in those pics!!

Could you repost the pic of you guys standing next to castle for a sense of scale? It's not loading...

Thanks,
Allan

[Tattoo]

Brad,

Another thing you can do is go to Lowes or Home Depot and look for foundation coating or sub coat. We have used this a lot of the years and it seems to stand up pretty well, especially outdoors. If you go this route you'll need to mix it with water until you get the consistency of a milkshake, that will allow you to spray it through a drywall hopper. Practice with it a bit until you get the desired consistency.

Hope this helps,

Mike

[sophisticatedterror]

I also use the foundation sealant that is used in basement repairs for cracks...It works well and is fairly cheap...



Kale

[freak 'n' stein]

I can't call the name of the product right now, but when I go to the haunt tomorrow I'll find out for you...

We did giant foam letters for our sign and hard coated the foam with some roof sealant product from Lowe's. It dries hard & sorta rubbery. I guess it really depends on you application, cause like Larry said, you can't really do hard coat "cheap"...but it's definitely cheaper than buying a sealing system I suppose.

[Matt Marich]

Coatings

For a true smooth coating, we use Industrial Polymers out of Texas. A gallon goes a long way. The benefits are the ability to spray using a hopper gun, the material has a long set time, so we can mix a batch of the componants in the morning and continously spray multiple coats all day without clean up. A strong word of caution, you need respiratory masks of a high quality to spray this stuff. It really tickles your throat. We use a simple air hood from Mcmaster Carr when we spray it. It supplies clean filtered air and the filters are easily replaced. You can, however, brush it on as well. This is a true Poly-urea product coating, similiar to the product Larry uses in the Darkness. But you probably don't have $ 30,000.00 laying around for the spray equipment, right! Its called Styro-Spray, but the synergy product and many like it are best for a sanded finish.

Matt

[zombietoxin]

Not exactly cheap but pretty useful- http://www.mortarsprayer.com/stucco-sprayer-for-walls/

[freak 'n' stein]

For a true smooth coating, we use Industrial Polymers out of Texas. A gallon goes a long way. The benefits are the ability to spray using a hopper gun, the material has a long set time, so we can mix a batch of the componants in the morning and continously spray multiple coats all day without clean up. A strong word of caution, you need respiratory masks of a high quality to spray this stuff. It really tickles your throat. We use a simple air hood from Mcmaster Carr when we spray it. It supplies clean filtered air and the filters are easily replaced. You can, however, brush it on as well. This is a true Poly-urea product coating, similiar to the product Larry uses in the Darkness. But you probably don't have $ 30,000.00 laying around for the spray equipment, right! Its called Styro-Spray, but the synergy product and many like it are best for a sanded finish.

Matt

awesome, awesome, awesome! would you happen to have a price quote?

[Allen H]

http://www.industrialpolymers.com/ca.../all-products/