Building a Cave

[Greg Chrise]

This Ferro Cement method ends up having to be thick to suport it's own weight. With various acrylic resin admixtures it can be as thin as 3/8 inch and be very strong thus potentially portable. Chickens might peck through it over time but far less material is required. It is like "hardcoating the wire mesh rather than building up some thickness in several layers of chicken wire.

You could take some animal dung and straw too but that ends up being thick. What's that smell? There's Methane in that there mine! Why use cubic tons of material when you don't have too. What would Al Gore say?

[Tattoo]

Here is a picture of our Caverns (9 feet wide, 9 feet tall, and 70 feet long), this is the area after Hell (our Main Cave) It is framed wth scrap lumber and wire mesh and sprayed with Tiger Foam. (Tiger Foam comes fire rated) The great thing is you don't need to paint it, you can light it to make the textures stand out. We found this out after painting ours (we paint everything under scene light) I will try to post more pics of the Main Cave and the Catacombs soon.



Take care,

Tattoo

[SomeThingInTheIce]

Thats awsome Tattoo, looks real to me.

[dr0zombie]

That cave is great.... What color is the foam before you painted it?

[damon carson]

That cave looks really cool! Man fogged out and with some cool lighting and sound effects it probably really freaks people out!
Damon

[Jim Warfield]

Making it look so really cave-like could open up some great opportunitys to create hiding places in the cave walls.
People's minds would see a round boulder here and there and make it have a round far side in their minds of it as nature makes them, then the far side could be flat, or hollow, creating a good hiding place right there in the wall, very unexpected.

[Tattoo]

It dries to between a tan and yellow color, kind of like expando foam.

Jim, that is exactly what we do in our cave areas and there are several great hiding spots in the one picture I have posted. I will post more soon.

Take care,

Tattoo

[beardedbil]

Tattoo,
Do you use the slow rise or regular stuff from tiger? Thanks!
Bill

[Tattoo]

We use the following:

Tiger Foam 600 bd. ft. Kit - FR
ASTM E-84 Fire Rated Foam Kit. All kits are complete with hose and gun and extra nozzle tips. This kit yields 600 board feet (square foot at 1") or 50 cu. ft.
Price $640.00

FR = Fire Rated

This foam sets up VERY FAST! Within a couple of minutes, if you use this product make sure your path is planned out so you can keep spraying very smoothly.


Take care,

Tattoo

[beardedbil]

Thanks for all the detail it will def help!
Bill

[Tattoo]

It will also get VERY WARM in the areas you are working because of the chemical reaction of the foam setting up. Read the directions VERY CAREFULLY!

Take care,

Tattoo

[Infoamtek]

De careful when using expanding foam. It releases vapors that are potentially hazardous.

[beardedbil]

Just as reference I believe others have used Burlap soaked in Hydrocal... probably a lot more heavier then the foam but perhaps easier to create then using cement or other rock like material...

[RJ Productions]

Thanks alot for posting that picture Tatoo. Just rub it in that some of us didn't get to go on tour and see your attraction!!! LOL!!!

All kidding aside your stuff looks great. I like the lighting you guys utilize. Maybe an article in Hauntworld on haunt lights or haunt photography, you seem to do both well.

Man, now I have to plan a whole trip to Greenbay...it would have been cheaper to do the tour for $177.00 !!!!!!

[Thorswings]

We built our cave out of foam. But we hired a local foam insulation company to come in and do it. It was cheaper and the guy who did it for us was having so much fun that he did a bunch of extra stuff for free. Only thing we found out the hard way was that when you use that much foam it floats and we are close to the river! Had to put some cement in to tie it down to in the spring.