Post #554561 by MadDogMike on Sat, Sep 18, 2010 6:26 AM

I'm thinking that a 30 foot fire is going to get your fraternity placed on double secret probation!

2x4s and chicken wire is a good base, cover it with cheap cloth and monster mud. Cheap cloth can be burlap, $2/yard bin at WalMart, linen supply companies sometimes sell old hotel sheets are getting worn. Monster mud is 3 or 4 parts premixed wallboard compound (5 gallon buckets at Lowes/Home Depot) and one part latex paint. While you are at Lowe's/Home Depot, pick up mismatched paint for cheap mix it all together and you'll probably have the perfect grey volcano color. Dried monster mud has some resistance to rain, especially if it's painted over with latex paint but won't stand a torrential downpour. It's been a long time since I took math in college, but the surface area of a cone increases exponentially with the height; a 15 foot volcano probably cost 5 times as much as an 8 foot volcano.

I once built an 8 foot tall volcano and put a giant vortex generator inside to blow giant smoke rings, ask you you need details.

Take an explosion sound file, slow it down by 3x and run it through an amplified sub-woofer to get a ground shaking rumble

Have fun!