Tiki Storm portable mini-golf

Hello! I have a side business renting out a portable miniature golf course (I created) to parties and events in Michigan. OF COURSE I had to make it tiki themed! We are still working on more theming, but we did finally finish our 4ft foam moai, and our 6ft faux palm/bamboo trees! I thought some of you might be interested in seeing it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiSIlHJEJS8

Is there a way to embed video links? The standard bbcode did not work:

[youtube]NiSIlHJEJS8[/youtube]

Very nice! Your link to YouTube worked.

I like that course, it's a great "gateway" to the world of tiki for the uninitiated. Give the kids a couple of Zombies and, hey, even more fun! Well, maybe not alcoholic zombies... But for the parents, you need a couple of those portable margarita makers and then serve real Mai Tais and Zombies. You might find quite a few add-on sales for the parents who are "too cool" to play mini-golf.

Pretty darn cool. Joining two things I enjoy... Tiki and Mini Golf.

Looks like a lot of work to build the whole course.

Very cool! Would you care to share how you created the tikis, moai and palm trees? Being from NJ I'm always looking for ways to make things for my yard that would survive our winters. Being from Michigan I'm sure you understand that!

On 2014-06-26 13:41, LoriLovesTiki wrote:
Very cool! Would you care to share how you created the tikis, moai and palm trees? Being from NJ I'm always looking for ways to make things for my yard that would survive our winters. Being from Michigan I'm sure you understand that!

Well, the current tiki lights were purchased (and we painted them with UV reactive paint so they would glow under black lights). We are currently working on making our own tiki too!

The moai is carved out of foam:

1. Since there isn't anywhere locally to get a large enough block of foam, we went to the home improvement store, and purchased sheets of rigid insulation foam (must be EPS or bead-board foam).

2. We cut the 4x8 foam sheets into 4x4

[After this point, we used several items from Hot Wire Foam Factory, which I will abbreviate as "HWFF"]

3. Using special glue from HWFF, we glued a bunch of the 4x4 foam sheets together to create a large block of foam.

4. We sanded the glued foam until it was relatively smooth.

** I forgot a step... We used a projector to project a moai picture onto the foam, and traced the image onto the foam with a marker, to get a starting point for the carving **

5. We used a combination of saws, knives, and a hot wire kit (from HWFF) to carve the foam.

6. HWFF has different foam coatings you can use to harden and protect your foam carvings. We used Exterior Foam Coat (with Boost) and Grit (to make it look like stone).

7. We painted it grey with exterior latex paint

8. We painted it with a LOT of ClearNeon invisible black light paint (to make it glow).

Now the palm/bamboo trees were much more involved, so maybe I'll post a tutorial with pics on how we made those.

[ Edited by: ToddVegas 2014-06-26 14:27 ]

How fun...nice job and bet it is a big hit with the kids.

Very cool... how about your trees? Any tips on how to make those?

What's your coverage area for Michigan and approximate cost to rent?