and can be alot of fun for anyone to make. When I first started to make tombstones I did no more
then paint some cardboard shaped stones and they of course fell apart be the end of the month.
I have come quite a ways since then thanks in part to three friends of mine who showed me alot of the
ways I will be posting here, so, Ghostess, Coda and Harbinger Of Sorrow, Thank You.
In this tutorial I will be building seven tombstones, bouncing around from one to the other.
The finished stones will be shown at the end. Well let's begin.
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| To begin I used two types of foam, pink
3/4" rigid foam and 2" white beadboard foam. Before doing anything the pink foam has a plastic covering on both sides which needs to be removed. |
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I took both types of foam and cut them in
half then those pieces I cut in half again. Both types of come in 4x8 sheets. If you do this you should come out with 4 pieces of each type of foam, 2'x4'. I glued 1 pink to 1 white, then layed them down set a weight on them to make a better seal. be sure to use something to protect foam from weights, they will make impressions in the foam, here I used plywood. |
| To glue these I decided to test some
adhesives, Gorilla Glue, Liguid Nails and Contact Cement. All worked just fine, however Gorilla Glue will always be my favorite. Word of WARNING: Be sure you buy the right types of Liguid Nails and Contact Cement. Liquid Nails will say, Wood and Foam Molding Adhesive Contact Cement will say NON-FLAMMABLE, will also say somewhere on it the materials it will work on and foam should be in the list. This is important, you buy the wrong one and it will melt your foam. |
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My next step, to decide the general size of
my stones. I decided on 7 stones, one took a whole piece, the other six I cut the other three pieces to come out with three medium and three small stones. The dimensions came out as, medium 3ft high 2ft wide, small, 2ft high 1ft wide, large 4ft high 2ft wide. |
| Next I decided on the shape of the
tombstones. There is a never ending supply of ideas for this. I tend to look at real tombstones for inspiration, also as you can see from the big one my own imagination. I cut out the shapes I wanted then smoothed all edges with a piece of sandpaper. The big one I had to glue the candle holder on first to get the shape I wanted. |
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This is one of the ways I got the shape I
wanted. I used a piece of flexible tubing and some nails. I bent the tubing to a shape I liked holding it in place with the nails then taking a marker I traced the shape and cut it out. |
| Before I went any further I made the holes in the bottom so I could stand them up. I used 1/2" pvc cut about six inches long. I used a 7/8" wood boring bit on my drill. Some may get nervous doing it this way, you also can use a large regular drill bit and just twist it into the foam by hand. One other tool I used, pictured far right, is a piece of pvc sharpened at the end with 2 slits in it and a piece of rebar. This is if you want the holes deeper then a drill bit can go. Just run the pvc in the hole with a twisting motion, when you pull it out it will have foam in it, use rebar to push it out. |
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When making the holes put it on a flat level surface, run in as far as you can go. KEEP DRILL LEVEL. Test fit your pvc, make sure it sits flush with the foam then glue it in place. I put a small amount of glue on the pvc then put it back in. |
| Ok, designing the face of the tombstones.
Doing seven tombstones made this part interesting. On each one I had to decide what I wanted on each, where I was going to put it and how to accomplish the look I was going for. First step the name, date, and epitaph. There are alot of ways to accomplish this. I will be showing some of the ways I go about it. On this one I setup the name and date using 2" stencils then boxed them in. Using a Dremel with a routing attachment I removed the foam from around the letters. |
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With Bubba's stone I printed out the name
and date in a font and size I liked then taped it in position on the stone. Then using an Exact-O knife I cut out the letters. |
| Kinda hard to see, I then removed the paper
and tape. Using the Dremel I cut the letters out. There is a shorter version of this method. After taping the name and date in position run the Dremel straight through the paper. It does work, I've done it before, just make sure you do the inside part of letters first, Especially letters like O, P, B, D, Q, A, R. This way is a bit irritating to me, the paper can start coming up and you could lose you spot. I do have friends that swear by this way though, in the end it's all up to what you prefer. |
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With Anne's I tried something new. I positoned the name and taped only top then put carbon paper underneath. Next I took a piece of dowel and put a rounded tip on it then traced out the letters. If you do it this way, press as hard as you can without ripping the paper. |
| As you can see the letters barely came out. I next took a black marker and retraced the letters, so I could see them better when cutting them out. At first I didn't like this way, but decided to try again on another tombstone. After doing it again and knowing what was going to happen, I actually found this way a bit easier and faster then the others so far. |
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This was the other tombstone I used the
carbon paper method. There other methods of getting the name, date, and epitaph on a stone. You can put them on the stone then cut them out with a sharp knife. Cutting in at an angle. Tape the stencils on then hit them with spray paint. The spray paint will eat away at the foam in the shape of the stencil. Use a projector to put the lettering on then trace it with a marker. Then cut it out how you like. I prefer the Dremel it gives more detail to letters and numbers. In the end once again, up to you. |
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