Day 57 - Sculpting the styrofoam dome plug

This morning, I finished cutting the rest of the styrofoam.  The Seattle-ite in me is satisfied that I got to recycle styrofoam that I already had for the creation of this dome.  After the final piece was cut, I started sticking the layers together with some of my Titebond III wood glue.


Looking back, I should have used some other kind of adhesive, because even after a significant amount of drying time, the glue was still wet when I came back later.  Ah well, it still did the job, mostly.  I have to sand down my dome former piece again, however, since some of the wood glue dried to the profile edge.  I need it to be smooth for when I eventually start applying Bondo to this thing.

Using a combination of sureform rasp, sandpaper, hacksaw, and a wire BBQ grill brush, I sculpted and shaped the dome per the former's outline, until it eventually looked as pictured.  This took a couple of hours, with a couple of breaks thrown in for good measure.

More of Rainier's personality is starting to peering through the layers of MDF and plywood ...

... however, many pieces of styrofoam were lost in the line of duty tonight.






Next steps are to:

• continue shaving the styrofoam to reduce the profile of the dome about 1/4" from the edge of the former
• glue on newspaper to strengthen the overall shape of the dome plug
• varnish the outside with fiberglass mat and resin (the glued newspaper will prevent the resin from melting the styrofoam)
• Bondo/sand/Bondo/sand/Bondo/sand etc.