Spyro's Fake Rock Build.

[spyrothedragon]

so basically gonna copy what i wrote from rfuk xD
i know there are loads of these about, but i thought i would post my own.
xD
i've not finished yet, just have to seal it with waterproof pva glue, throw some sand over it, and seal it again xD
i was going to do a step by step thing, but i accidentally deleted some of my photos on my camera on accident, i still have a few left. xD
so i'll just show you a few photos and a little bit of how i did it. xD
What i used/will use:
polystyrene, b&q 10 sheets for £10.
Tile Grout
No Nails (gun)
cocktail sticks
sand pva glue.
i did the build in two parts that would come together inside the vivarium and look like one big rock build.
i measured my tank, and made sure i could fit everything through the glass sliders xD
i cut out peices of ploystyrene into many different shapes, after about half hour of piecing them together i finally got one that looked pretty good.

it's a cave sort of thing, but he can also sit ontop of it to bask under the uv lamp.
i added cocktail sticks to strenthen it, then glued it with no nails.
i then needed to add more rocks to the far left of the cool end. glued them down.
and gave the cool side it's first coat of grout, i watered it down a little, to get into the parts where it would usually be hard to grout.

while this end was drying i got started on the hot end and basking site, while the first coat of grout was drying.
i pieced more pieces of polystyrene together, untill i came up with a design i liked and glued into place, i also gave the hot end a coat of watered down grout.
so over parts of the day, i did more layers of grout, because of the heat, it dried pretty fast, so i did around 4 coats in one day.
it's now in the kitchen drying.
tomorrow depending on whether or not i think 4 coats is enough, i will cover in waterproof pva, throw sand over it and recover with waterproof pva.
then hopefully it should be done by tomororw
i will post pictures of when it's done.
sorry for not really doing a step by step with pictures, but honestly, my memory on my sd card ran out, and i deleted some of the pictures when i started it.
so this is what it looks like now.

 

[spyrothedragon]

i'm now putting on the first layer of sand.
so basically i pva glued it and dumpled a pile of sand ontop.
in half hour when the pva is dry i will re go over it with more pva and add another layer of sand, then finally sealing it off with more waterproof pva

 

[spyrothedragon]

nearly finished, just needs to dry overnight, then one more coat of waterproof pva tomorrow, i hope it fits in my vivarium now

 

[spyrothedragon]

final coat of waterproof pva
i had to cut an inch of the cool side so it would fit in my vivarium, regrout etc
it's drying in the sun now, it's coming out pretty nicely.

the left side is the one i finished gluing a few minutes ago, that's why it's still white.
can't wait untill it dries.


*sorry for the number of posts*
i will update this when the pva has dried

 

[Ethelia]

Looking great!