Full Sized T-Rex Dinosaur Skull - advice on coating/finishing/painting rigid foam?

[Zinger]

Re: Full Sized T-Rex Dinosaur Skull - advice on coating/finishing/painting rigid foam



I managed to do some cuts already with the old pieces of foam I picked up...it actually wasn't too bad! MESSY, but workable. Will post some pics later tonight.

I think that because the foam was aged that it was more brittle/flaky and easier to cut.

This is the old dirty pile foam I grabbed off a guy from Kijiji:

How do you glue the foam sheets together?

I've been using 3M Super 77. It works pretty well but sometimes the layers separate. That makes finishing the final piece difficult.

 

[rickunstoppable]

Hi all, I'm thinking about sculpting a full-size t-rex skull out of pink rigid insulating foam (mainly because I was able to acquire a a big pile of old used foam!).

I'll be doing it in manageable sections and then merging everything together at the end.

I have some ideas about covering/finishing the foam but am wondering if any seasoned sculptors out there had any good tips. The goal is to cover/paint/seal the foam to the point where it looks and feels like a museum resin fossil casting.

I really like the darker, more matte weathered look (see attachment):

View attachment 1291379

Ideally the final sculpture will be sturdy enough to stand on and could sit outside and withstand the weather and not easily chip paint (a nice garden centerpiece? ).

My first instinct was to coat the foam with PVA or something to protect it from any solvent use. Then I would cover the entire thing with fiberglass/resin, maybe do some finishing work with Bondo etc and then paint, weather, and seal it.

I'm thinking if I use fiberglass it'll introduce a lot of finishing work because of the grid-like fiber texture so I'm wondering if there's a better alternative - maybe something like Line-X (never used it before)?

Would your local hardware store automotive Bondo resin be good enough or do you think there's a better alternative? (I'll probably need a lot of this stuff)

Luckily there's a lot of margin for error on the texturing because of the bumpy/broken surfaces of natural fossils.

If anyone has any better ideas or time-saving tips I would be eternally grateful. Will be posting progress along the way!

Cheers

I know this was years ago, but could you duplicate this and ship the parts for assembly once received? I need to build 2 of these for a small local museum, and have no access to a cnc capable, I would be happy to pay for your time, materials and shipping costs. I live in Vancouver Canada. Please let me know what you think. Thanks for your consideration.

 

[rickunstoppable]

Hi all, I'm thinking about sculpting a full-size t-rex skull out of pink rigid insulating foam (mainly because I was able to acquire a a big pile of old used foam!).

I'll be doing it in manageable sections and then merging everything together at the end.

I have some ideas about covering/finishing the foam but am wondering if any seasoned sculptors out there had any good tips. The goal is to cover/paint/seal the foam to the point where it looks and feels like a museum resin fossil casting.

I really like the darker, more matte weathered look (see attachment):

View attachment 1291379

Ideally the final sculpture will be sturdy enough to stand on and could sit outside and withstand the weather and not easily chip paint (a nice garden centerpiece? ).

My first instinct was to coat the foam with PVA or something to protect it from any solvent use. Then I would cover the entire thing with fiberglass/resin, maybe do some finishing work with Bondo etc and then paint, weather, and seal it.

I'm thinking if I use fiberglass it'll introduce a lot of finishing work because of the grid-like fiber texture so I'm wondering if there's a better alternative - maybe something like Line-X (never used it before)?

Would your local hardware store automotive Bondo resin be good enough or do you think there's a better alternative? (I'll probably need a lot of this stuff)

Luckily there's a lot of margin for error on the texturing because of the bumpy/broken surfaces of natural fossils.

If anyone has any better ideas or time-saving tips I would be eternally grateful. Will be posting progress along the way!

Cheers

I know this was years ago but could you duplicate this and ship the parts for assembly upon arrival? I need to build 2 of these for a small local museum and have no access to a cnc capable. I would obviously be happy to cover any costs. I live in Vancouver BC. Let me know, thanks.

 

[rickunstoppable]

I know this was years ago but could you duplicate this and ship the parts for assembly upon arrival? I need to build 2 of these for a small local museum and have no access to a cnc capable. I would obviously be happy to cover any costs. I live in Vancouver BC. Let me know, thanks.

Oops. Didn't mean to post twice. Sorry.

 

[publiusr]

It isn't just feathers you may have to add---but lips

T. Rex Had Lips That Concealed Its Teeth, Study Says

Paleontologists say popular, toothy depictions of the dinosaur may have missed the mark

www.smithsonianmag.com

 

[brandonstudio]

Re: Full Sized T-Rex Dinosaur Skull - advice on coating/finishing/painting rigid foam

With winter coming up fast I decided to go full steam on the T-rex skull project since most of the work has to be done outside. Here's a quick update on the progress of the skull

Here is the scanned 3D model I'm using of what I believe to be the T-rex "Stan" fossil discovered in Buffalo, South Dakota by Stan Sacrison:

According to the Black Hills Institute, the real-life skull has the dimensions of 58" L x 33" W x 68 1/2" H. (approx. 4.8 feet wide) and I really wanted to make mine match the full scale of the original. Because of this I had to chop the skull model into 8 sections so I could work manageable sections on the CNC router (the router can only work with objects inside of a 2' x 4' work area with a depth of approx 4"):

To make these 3D files workable on the CNC machine, I "sliced" them up into layers to match the depth of the pieces of foam I had (3" inch rigid pink insulation foam).

For just the TOP LEFT half of the skull, it took about 5 pieces of foam and a ended up creating a jigsaw puzzle of 25 pieces:

Need to run right now but more updates tomorrow

Hi, this project looks awesome. Can you please advise what software you used to slice and layout the slices here? Thank you