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#1
05-06-2007
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Fangs's Fountain How-To
Ok... Here at long last is the How-To for the fountain I made. Many friends told me I needed to do this so, here goes. If I forget anything please let me know! Pull up a chair, and go grab yourself whatever you like to drink, because this may take a little bit to read through.... LOL
First I cut my coffin shape out of the 2 inch extruded polystyrene---pink---foam I had left over from my tombstone. Then I painted it with an Exterior Latex paint that I picked up from Sherwin-Williams from the mis-tint section. You can mix and match the colors which I just love doing..... hehehehe....... It took 2 coats for me, you can add more if you want to, to keep the print from showing through, or--I couldn't do this as it was raining and I have no workshop-- you could take a palm sander and sand off the print. The sealer I like to use is Stone Mason's Concrete Sealer---so far it has worked well for me, and since I had to buy an entire gallon, I will continue to use it till it's gone, which may be awhile.... LOL Heres the link to the painted toe pincher shape: While letting the paint dry I cut a hole in the pond planter so the pump and hose could be placed underneath it. This process is trial and error.... LOL..... Also while letting the paint dry, I cut a piece of scrap foam---from the actual piece I took the coffin shape from, sliced it in half with my wonder-cutter, and then sliced that piece in half again. It turned out to be around only 1/2 inch thick. Printed off a skull pattern that I liked----mine is from a free stained glass pattern that had been saved to my computer and then opened in an image editing program. I erased the leading lines, and tweaked the expression a little bit. LOL My advice = Make several copies just in case something happens to the original, or you want to make more---hehehe, future projects planned, but that is another story all together. LOL Cut the skull out from the paper, and taped it to the small piece of foam. Then, I took an x-acto knife, marked how deep i wanted the cuts in the foam to be, on the blade (which rubbed off often, so I had to keep re-marking the blade) and started cutting out the shape of the skull. The cuts were shallow on each side because I used a smaller bladed knife.... I tried to be careful with the paper pattern, so I could flip the foam skull and the pattern over, and cut from the other side that way the holes matched up perfectly and I could just pop out the pieces = less sanding inside the tiny holes, trust me, its a bitch to try and get sandpaper into them! My Advice again = when flipping pattern and skull over, make sure that the pattern is facing down, --- reversed--- or your cuts will not match. You don't need to go all the way through the skull for the cracks. You just want the paint to seep into the cracks/cuts to give it the effect of cracks. Here's the skull before painting. Whew, do your eyes hurt from all the reading yet?  sorry about that. After cutting out the skull, I traced the foam skull shape onto the front of the coffin shape, where I wanted it to be. After the paint was dry of course, but after all that work making the skull, it should be dry, well plus with a little help from a hair dryer! heeheehee Then I made the painful decision to cut into the coffin shape. Once again marking the blade as to how deep i wanted the skull to go in. Go shallow first, as it is pretty hard to add foam back to the shape if you cut it too deep... LOL This step allowed for me to be able to pop the skull into the coffin and give it the raised effect. I used one of those handy pumpkin carving pieces that has a metal loop on the end to shave the inner foam where the skull will sit, out of the coffin. Yes, it was time consuming but well worth it. After making sure that the skull was going to fit into its slot, and that the "hole" was the depth I wanted, I started thinking about how the water would flow from the skull.....And decided that I wanted to make "channels" for the water to trickle down from the top of the head, where I would be putting the main hole in the back for the tubing. Here's the pic showing the back of the skull and its channels. LOL I eyeballed the placement for the tubing, well, held the tubing to the back where I thought it needed to be and traced around the tube. Then bit the bullet and put the hole in from the back side. Here is the hole for the tubing. Next I screwed the pond planter into the bottom of the coffin, adding some glue to help keep it together. You may want to make it stronger somehow, or just not put the fountain outside until the Big Nite... LOL You don't have to click on it, its the same pic as the one I used for showing the holes I cut into the pond planter. LOL I then decided that the skull needed something when it was popped into the coffin, so I colored the inside of the hole, where the eyes would be, with a red sharpie... worked out pretty dang well IMO... LOL Also, in the following pic, you can see the plastic urn I used to put the coffin/planter into. I then drilled holes into the urn to be able to screw the planter base into it. If you do this, I recommend getting some sort of sealant/caulking that is for wet areas to seal around the screws in the bottom of the plastic urn... Trust me on that one..... LMAO...... Whether or not you want to make a hole, and put the cord to the pump through the side of the urn is your decision.... lol I decided not to, seeings how i would have to make a hole bigger than I wanted to and then have to seal it....... Didn't want to go there..... LOL Oh, and all I did for the coloring of the water is added some of the liquid paste type food coloring--not the stuff you get at the grocery stores that is labeled food coloring, the stuff I used is not that runny, its thicker---deep pink to be exact, it looked like the color of deep hot pink---the color of pink found on the outside of extra's cool watermelon bubblegum. LOL Just mix a small amount in a pickle jar half full of water first, then add that to the water as your filling up your fountain base. I may just take a note from some of the project sites and make the "highlighter water" to put in it this year. muwhahahahah Yeah, you don't have to click on another link here, because I didn't load the pics of these steps.... LOL The next pic, (I know,...oak = no slivers!!! LOL inside joke between friends---you know who you are that that is directed to   ) is of the fountain working, I couldn't put it into my tub because the cord for the pump was not long enough, and there was absolutely no way I was going to run an extension cord into the bathtub.... sorry, but, um no.  LOL Last but not least, here is the link for a video of the fountain working. A videographer I am not, sorry about not having light but I don't think my little camera will turn on the flash for movie purposes.... have to check that out..... LOL When I get a better video of the fountain running, I will post that instead, till then...... LOL Thanks to Lilly for giving me her absolutely VONDERFUL idea of how to make my fountain even better by adding some floral foam inside the rim of the urn and gluing some Spanish moss to the floral foam to make it look that much better. When I get that done this summer I will definitely post pics of it. THANK YOU so much once again Lilly :> And a HUGE THANK YOU to Zombie-F for having the contest, and to all of you who liked my fountain and asked me questions and encouraged me to do this how-to. I'm sorry I didn't get to it sooner, but such is life, LOL If i forgot to thank you then: Thank You. :> Any questions? Please feel free to ask them, I'll be glad to answer them if I can! :> Ok, now who's ready for a nap? Heeheeeheee
__________________
^v^ Fangs ¯V¯V¯  Awaken you, with a little Evil inside.. Awaken by Disturbed
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#2
05-06-2007
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Well that certainly was a long one.I'm tired now LOL
Anyways glad you had time to write this how to up. Where do you get the liquid paste food coloring? Why didn't you use reg food color? Your vid turned out okay, but now with all that running water it's time for the little girls room excuse me please.... as for my advice your welcome: thanks Fangs, anytime
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"We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe." - Johann von GoetheHappy Harleyween
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#3
05-06-2007
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Nice how-to Fangs! Now you are in for it! Now that I know you do How-To's, I'm going to ask a lot more of them!
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http://www.santasprojects.com/Corpse_County
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#4
05-06-2007
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Hey that was cool. It helped me figure out some of the fountain questions i had. THANKS
__________________
Heaven Won't Have Me And Hell's Afraid I'll Take Over!!
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#5
05-08-2007
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Quote:
 but I think it could be found at Michaels or any place that sells cake decorating stuff.... :> I didn't use the reg food coloring because I remembered reading on someones else's fountain how-to that they liked the liquid paste better than the reg food coloring because of the look it gave the water. It gave it a deeper color IMHO. And because I didn't have any red reg food coloring left... LOL Here's what the stuff I used is called: Spectrum Gel Paste Food Colors by Ateco. Your Velcome Lilly, Thank you Quote:
Quote:
It was fun to do and knowing that I actually helped someone with that long winded soapbox speech---LOL--- makes me feel better about doing it while letting my son play the playstation 2! LOL
__________________
^v^ Fangs ¯V¯V¯ Awaken you, with a little Evil inside.. Awaken by Disturbed
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