# Great Stuff tips...



## HibLaGrande

I just thought a thread dedicated to *great stuff *expanding foam would be cool to have around. So here is a place to share your experience with the stuff that nightmares are made of (in more ways than one) . If you have pictures of project you have made with it . Or if you have found out the hard way, as I have ,just how messy it can be to work with.Feel free to post it .

my own rules of the road when using this stuff.

I now wear gloves, safety glasses, long pants, long sleave shirt, stocking cap and shoes that you can throw away. This stuff does not come off your skin without a fight. It will not come out of your hair or your dogs hair. you and your dog will need a hair cut if some accedently flips into your hair.

Work In a low traffic area with plenty of room to move around and keep kids and pets away.

Heavy gauge plastic sheeting is great to work on. I have sprayed the sheet with WD-40, Silicone, or rubbed on a light coat of lithium grease in the past to keep the foam from sticking to it. If the plastic is new clean and smooth you can get away without using a lubricant of some sort. Once the foam has cured it will peel off of the plastic fairly easy.

Great stuff is rather expensive. so I use an armature when ever possible. I made a nice size chest piece by laying a pile of shop towels on my work table in the ruff shape of a torso. I then covered the towels with heavy duty plastic and then covered that with the foam. It came out nice and gorey looking.

thats all I have time for now.


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## mikeq91

How do you prevent it from sticking in the tubing?


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## Lotus

I have found that if you spray wd40 on the parts that you have great stuff on it comes right off, I found this out when I got it all over my hands and my dad told me to spray some wd40 on it


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## Vlad

I know that it's tough to use as a casting agent. Very unpredictable. It is great for forming bodies and parts though.


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## HibLaGrande

mikeq91 said:


> How do you prevent it from sticking in the tubing?


Once you open the can you have to use it all. There is no storeing it for later use. If I have a little left in a can I usually squirt out blobs of stuff on my plastic sheet to make assorted chunks of guts and gore.


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## maxcarnage

quick monster hands

if you put on a pair of cheap cotton gloves (jersey). you can creat quick monster hands by spraying a good size blob onto some cardboard, and then picking it up, and smear it all over the gloves....kinda like you would wash your hands....you can then hold your hands in a pose untill it starts to set (usually 10 minutes or so...depending on room temp. once it sets, it's pretty easy to remove the gloves and set up to allow to cure. I'll try and dig out a set I have from last year.


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## HibLaGrande

maxcarnage said:


> quick monster hands
> 
> if you put on a pair of cheap cotton gloves (jersey). you can creat quick monster hands by spraying a good size blob onto some cardboard, and then picking it up, and smear it all over the gloves....kinda like you would wash your hands....you can then hold your hands in a pose untill it starts to set (usually 10 minutes or so...depending on room temp. once it sets, it's pretty easy to remove the gloves and set up to allow to cure. I'll try and dig out a set I have from last year.


cool I'll have to give that a shot.


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## maxcarnage

here's a pic of the gloves/hands that I made....add a little paint, and they're golden 










p.s. you can achieve different textures of the finished product by playing with "whipping" great stuff into a thinner paste before applying to the gloves


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## SpectreTTM

Wow Max 

Love the glove Idea. They look great.

I have used it as a Glue in the past. 
I needed a way to attach a PVC flange to a cheap-o plastic pumpkin. 
Boy did it ever work.


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## HibLaGrande

Here is a ghoul thingy I made with a pvc frame and foam.


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## colinsuds

omg that is the coolest thing i have ever seen. do you have a how 2 or some simple directions on how to make that thing


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## HibLaGrande

colinsuds said:


> omg that is the coolest thing i have ever seen. do you have a how 2 or some simple directions on how to make that thing


sorry I dont have a how to. But I made a pvc frame and roughed it up using coarse grit sand paper and then added layers of foam over several days until I was happy with the shape. I then took a cheap plastic mask and lined it with chicken wire, filled it with foam (several layers) and stuck it on to the neck stump. I used diferent saws and knives to shape the neck and sanded it down with a mouse sander to meet up flush with the mask. I painted the back red then I cut a rib piece from ACC in half set it on the back and held it in place with the foam. spray painted everything with hunter green and black. The LED's in the pingpong ball eyes don't work anymore.


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## kevin242

*Reusing Great Stuff*

I have been mildly successful at using great stuff once it's been opened. The key is to remove the tube and nozzle attachment before it's cured. Carefully clean the nozzle out with a length of coat hanger wire (while wet) and seperate the tube and attachment, let dry, then use the wire to clear them. I've used one can at least 3 times by doing this. I've also been buying the smaller cans this year. 
Here is a monster I made with great stuff:









I cut the tube back to about 1" and shot it at a 4th quality bucky, whatever missed landed in the grass and was scooped up when tacky and added back to the mix grass clippings and all!


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## HibLaGrande

kevin242 said:


> I have been mildly successful at using great stuff once it's been opened. The key is to remove the tube and nozzle attachment before it's cured. Carefully clean the nozzle out with a length of coat hanger wire (while wet) and seperate the tube and attachment, let dry, then use the wire to clear them.


I'll have to remember that.

nice skelly/zombie!


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## Big Howlin

*how many cans of foam did it take you to creat that bug eyed beastie LaGrande?*


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## Frighteners Entertainment

kevin242 said:


> I have been mildly successful at using great stuff once it's been opened. The key is to remove the tube and nozzle attachment before it's cured. Carefully clean the nozzle out with a length of coat hanger wire (while wet) and seperate the tube and attachment, let dry, then use the wire to clear them.


You can use acetone to clean these parts. Also will work on whatever you got great stuff on, if it hasn't dried. Granted, that acetone is safe to use on the surface you are cleaning.


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## rasp

Great stuff can be handled and shaped before it's hardened. I got this idea from someone years ago. Cover your work space with a plastic trash bag. Get some sticks or short pieces of PVC pipe. Lay these down on your plastic and sqirt two small balls at each end. Rub a dolup of dish soap on latex gloves. When the foam gets dry enough it's not sticking to your gloves you can shape the ends to look like bones.

You can also make chains. This idea is from Mad Max but I modifide it to make smaller links. You'll end up with a ruff, rusty old looking chain. Things you need,

sand
Can goods boxes. The short ones. 4 to 6 of them.
tiolet paper roll. ( empty )
Can of great stuff. Cut the leanth of the tube in half. A shorter tube seems to aid in controll.
Large plastic trash bags.
A very big area to work in. You'll need a place to put your sand filled boxes. And a place to put your links wile they finish hardening.
A 5 gal bucket or large box to put all the hardened links in as you work.

Tips and techniques.
The idea is to use the tiolet paper roll to mark in the sand. Not deep, just enought to use as a guid to size the foam as you spray. ( blanks ) This wont be the size of the links. 

Fill the boxes with sand. ( the more boxes you use the more links you can make at one time. Drawback> the foam has a short work-a-bility window. If you make to many blanks you'll have to work fast to get them all done. I found 50 was my limit.

Spread your trash bags out on a flat serface. This will be where you set your finished chain links till they harden. Should be within arms reach of your sand boxes. Put your box or bucket next to your hardening area.

Using the toilet paper roll end make circles in the sand a good 2 inches appart. ( as you get better at controlling the spray you'll be able to make them closer together )

Make circles of foam over each mark in the sand. TIP> Keep the nozzle moving and use as little foam as possible to complete each circle. You might want to do a practice run to get the hang of it. 

Let sit for a bit. You can tell when they're about ready when they stop sticking to your soap coated glove. At first it will be like working with a roasted marsh mellow of the end of a stick. As time goes by they'll become harder and you'll be able to work faster. Squees and pull each blank into a link making sure you don't have big globs or really wide areas. These will get in the way when putting the chain together. As you form them put them on the plastic bags making sure they don't touch. TIP> Make the links wide enough to accomidate the width of the foam, ( make sure they'll fit inside each other like a chain ) As these are hardening make a new set of blanks in the foam. 

When completely dry paint gray and use a nutmeg color for rust. A light pastell green looks good as slime.

Assembly
I used hot glue. Cut through one end of a link. Place an uncut link through this and glue the cut back together. A little spot of glue will do. To much and you'll melt the faom. Keep doing this till you get about 2 feet of chain. Then start a new one. I found it was easier to put a bunch of small chains together than try to work on one big one.


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## Big Howlin

:googly:


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## dflowers2

You can get some very interesting effect by spraying great stuff on a skelly torso, lets say a bucky, and once you have sprayed it on and let it expand a little while, you can smooth it back out with gloved hands to get an effect that looks like melted or decaying skin. Can be very messy though. Also, it is stainable, although it takes a long time for the stain to dry.


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## dave the dead

Storing greatstuff for re-use? Heck yes! You really dont even have to clean out the tube, assuming you can work with a smaller tube for each spray.....just let the greatstuff harden at the end of the tube. The next time you need to use the can, cut off the end where the blob has hardened....

yep...it's that simple! I have used a single can to make 4 to 5 skulls out of a mold, allowing at least a complete day between pulls.


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## Sickie Ickie

And if you use the smaller cans, a coat hanger wire will fit through the tube nicely and clean it out after it all hardens.


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## scareme

If you are using great stuff to fill molds do you have to spray the molds with anything to get them to release?


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## dave the dead

scareme said:


> If you are using great stuff to fill molds do you have to spray the molds with anything to get them to release?


I use a latex mold and have never used a release agent....occasionally you will need to clean it up by stretching the latex and peeling off the greatstuff. I switched to 2part urethane and am using vaseline as a release agent....might work ok with the greatstuff, too....


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## pyro

just want to let you all knowthat i used this stuff to make hands- i got some wax paper and did on outline of my hand and sprayed a little at a time till i got the size i wanted--plus on one hand i got some card board tape to the table so it formed an arch to get a closed hand effect , when dry i just peeled the wax paper off.


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## Bone Dancer

Thanks for the information, last year i had no luck with the stuff making long fingers.


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## Zero

*Greatstuff*

Hey, I have just started using it, and I have noticed the time period of it solidifying is quite a while. How long does it take to harden enough for me to let go of a prop? Approx. time of coarse. Thanks for the help.


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## RookieSpooker

It should take a full 24 hours to cure completely.


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## Death Wraith

If you're trying to hold two pieces together until this stuff dries enough so you can let go, you should find another way to do it. The surface will start to crust up in a couple hours but still not enough to hold any real weight. I assembled the base for my skull fountain last year using ACC bones and greatstuff. We could only do a small section at a time, balancing the bones against each other so they would stay in place, and had to let the GS cure overnight:










Then we rotated the base a little and did the next section. After the bones were attached we filled in the blank spots with more GS, then painted:










Probaly took over a week of working every night to finish the thing:










Hope that helps!

DW


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## HalloweenZombie

Nice work DW. That's definitely one of the better fountains I have seen.


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## Zero

HalloweenZombie said:


> Nice work DW. That's definitely one of the better fountains I have seen.


Yea, I agree.

Thanks for the help, hurray for duct tape I suppose.


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## Death Wraith

Thanks for the compliments! Here's a pic of it in action at the loacl haunt last year:










You can't get the full effect until you see it in action though. LOL

DW


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## CoolDJTV

*Anyone know how to hard coat?*

Anyone know how to hard coat?
I am planning on making foam walls this year.


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## BioHazardCustoms

One way to keep it from hardening in the tube is to squirt straight acetone into the tube after disconnecting it from the can. run it through until no more residue of the foam is left. 

Also, if you let it sit until it "skins" you can manipulate it with your hands. I don't have any pics loaded on this computer but I will try to get some uploaded and give a sneak peek of one of our projects for this years haunt.


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## Kymmm

I love the glove idea to make hands! I'm going to have to give that a try! Here is some hot coals I did with great stuff..


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## Jaybo

CoolDJTV said:


> Anyone know how to hard coat?
> I am planning on making foam walls this year.


When you say you are making foam walls, you mean sheets of foam board and not walls made from Great Stuff right? Great Stuff would be extremely expensive.

If you are covering entire walls, then take a 40lb bag of vinyl concrete, one gallon of wood glue, and mix with just enough water to make a thick pancake batter consistency. Load this into a hopper gun (like they use to spray drywall) and spray on your walls. If you plan on painting your walls a dark color and then dry brushing with a lighter tone, then use cement tint mixed in your mix to help save on paint. I use a charcoal tint mixed fairly heavy. Make sure you mix the tint with the water first, then add to your cement/glue mix.

You can pick up a cheap hopper gun at Harbor Freight.


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## stockthomas

*Spare Foam Nozzles*

I found a company that sells spare foam nozzle packs for great stuff and others like Xtendafoam, they are in my hardware store but also online at www.xtendafoam.com , beats the heck out of trying to clean the nozzles or throw away half used cans. Enjoy!


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## wdGoof

I have made hands using wire and cheap latex gloves. I use the wire to rough in a shape for the hand with curved fingers or in a gripped position. I then insert that into a latex golve. Squirt in some foam and allow it to expand and fill the glove. Make sure to use the spray nozzle to get foam all the way down into each finger. Use a zip or twist tie to close the end of the glove. Once dry, you can paint ove the latex gloves, or remove them for more textured looks


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## Rania

Kymmm said:


> I love the glove idea to make hands! I'm going to have to give that a try! Here is some hot coals I did with great stuff..


That looks fabulous!


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## Rania

I am almost complete in building a 4-foot pumpkin head with great stuff. Will post when complete.


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## windsor

we will be using great stuff to make a pumpkin thief that we have come up with also we will be using monster mud for some of it as well! I can't wait to post pic of it on here when we are all finished.


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## Buzz

mikeq91 said:


> How do you prevent it from sticking in the tubing?





kevin242 said:


> I have been mildly successful at using great stuff once it's been opened. The key is to remove the tube and nozzle attachment before it's cured. Carefully clean the nozzle out with a length of coat hanger wire (while wet) and seperate the tube and attachment, let dry, then use the wire to clear them. I've used one can at least 3 times by doing this.





stockthomas said:


> I found a company that sells spare foam nozzle packs for great stuff and others like Xtendafoam, they are in my hardware store but also online at www.xtendafoam.com , beats the heck out of trying to clean the nozzles or throw away half used cans. Enjoy!


Years ago when I first started using GS, they had instructions right on the can regarding clean up and re-use. The key is preparation.

Before you begin using the GS get yourself 3 wooden toothpicks, 1 pipe cleaner, and a cup of water. Place the toothpicks and the pipe cleaner in the water to soak. Open and use your GS as usual. When done, unscrew the right angle adapter from the can and disconnect the tube.

Put one toothpick in the top of the GS can.
Put one toothpick in each end of the right angle adapter.
And put the pipe cleaner in the tube.

When dry, you can pull the pipe cleaner and the toothpicks out. They in turn will pull all the dried GS out and your nozzle, adapter, and tube will be clean on the inside.


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## EverydayisHalloween311

Very cool. I'm using some for gut's ... Gotta be careful on how big this stuff expands lol


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