Post #493190 by Slacks Ferret on Tue, Nov 10, 2009 9:50 PM

I'm looking to do a bit of the same thing in my tiki room, and I wasn't gonna tell anyone this until I was done, 'cause I'm not sure what the results will be...

...I asked a friend/co-worker of mine who works on movie sets how she would make a fake lava wall. Since I'm not doing a waterfall/feature with the wall, She suggested using styrofoam.

1. Carve the styrofoam (this is probably the hardest step, and the one that would take the most artistry)
2. Coat it in 3 layers of white glue. Yes, that's kid's school glue.
3. Once the glue is dry, Liberally coat the foam with Spackle or drywall mud.
4. The next part I came up with by reading threads here on TC; take a corn broom and texture the wet Spackle with it by using the bristle ends as a stamp. Make other holes with other round objects.
5. Once it's dry, paint it.

I did do a small test piece and it looks great. It will be quite a while before I'm finished. I'm not sure of the durability...so you may only want to consider this method if your wall will be out of most folk's reach.

Take lots of progress shots no matter what you end up doing.