Post #795261 by bobotron on Mon, May 20, 2019 8:29 AM

You guys were my inspiration to create this spray foam fireplace cover! Thanks for the tips!

Carved and ready to paint. I ended up spackling the whole thing because I spackled a few spots I wantd to fix, but the texture was different after spray painting and even brush painting with latex. So I spackled the whole thing for texture consistency. I wish I never spackled any of it and left the imperfections because the cut foam had a more "sponge" like appearance. Would have looked more like lava stone IMO if I left it alone. I just used a big serrated bread knife for all the carving. Definitely needs to be serrated as a plain knife just wants to push the foam and tear it.

Spraying and carving. I did parts of it so I could follow my pattern on the cardboard. Doing it again, I think I would try just spray foaming the whole board, draw the design on the foam, and carve all at once.

My template. A piece of cardboard taped to the fireplace glass. If it wasn't for the curve of the glass, I may have just bought a piece of the thick pink foam and carved that instead. (Don't worry. The only place that even gets warm on this is coming out the top. So nothing on this addition will be in the heat).

Note I had some extra foam left in the can, so I sprayed a bunch on a piece of cardboard to make a smaller face, instead of throwing it away. But, I came out the next day and the cardboard was all curled from the drying process. SO, if you opt for some sort of backing, make sure its firm enough that it doesn't bend easily while curing.