Making full size dinosaur bones?

[JediJayne]

I have a friend who asked me to make some dinosaur bone replicas for him. The goal is to bury them for a few weeks/months and then the kids in his classes will dig them up as part of a project. I'm thinking of going the route of pink foam insulation sheets. I'm good with the actual shaping and carving but I'm unsure of coating them to last. I've read about a first coating with wood glue or gesso, then maybe rondo for the final coat before paint. I've also seen maybe Portland cement. For reference, I'm thinking the biggest bones would be a few feet long, maybe 8-10" diameter. Has anyone done this before or have any advice? As this is a side project for his students I'm trying to keep costs down. Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[Moviefreak]

I would carve them out of foam then coat them in Bondo. That will be nice and hard. Then sand them down, paint them bone color, then age them. You could also do fiberglass coating but that will be more involved.

 

[cavx]

I'd resin coat them if you are going to bury them for any length of time. If they were buried the day before the dig, probably no issues with any other method.

 

[Borg69]

If using foam, I would fear they not holding up to the weight of being buried.

 

[dlambert]

Why don't you make them out of cement. Dinossaur bones are basically bone turned into rock...

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[JediJayne]

Some great advice, I'll have to play around with it a bit. I'll be sure to share progress when I start to work on it. Thanks!