Help needed making a HUGE volcano

I'm throwing a very large fraternity party in 2 weeks and need to build a very large volcano for it.

I'm talking a volcano that's 1-2 stories tall.

Obviously, we have to begin with some sort of structure. 2x4s made into a tall teepee can start it, and we can wrap this in chicken wire.

The question is, where do I go from here? Paper mache would take a very long time, and would be ruined by rain before the party. Expanding foam, without looking at the price yet, would cost too much.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Aloha,

For what you want, you should talk to Rick.

[email protected]

http://www.td-p.com/

Rick is a local genius that has done loads of work in Hawaii. Much of his work is in pictured in my book "Waikiki Tiki: Art, History and Photographs." If any one can share advice on this undertaking of yours, it's him.

(With ZEST!) Aloha

Here' an instructional video....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMD4TdvE-vY

My understanding is that Steve Wynn took this same approach (but he multiplied the scale and construction material by 1000) and came up with the following...

Good Luck !! :)

Definitely go the chickenwire route but since this is a one off thing, coat it with mud. Dirt and water will do the trick. Google Pepe Ozan Lingam Tower to see some examples.

Here's one:

Going for a wider base volcano shape should actually be easier than the above project. One thing that's really great about the mud coating is that cracks develop letting out light.

Oh, so here's how it works.

• Build the frame out of scrap wood (2x4's and whatever)
• Wrap chicken-wire around it.
• Fill it with dry firewood.
• Coat the exterior with thick mud while leaving a sizeable cut-out opening somewhere along the base for air to enter. - (optional) Douse wood with flammable liquid or paraffin.
• Set on fire from opening along base.

Then standback and enjoy the show.

Oh! Almost forgot. The best thing is that at some point, as the chicken wire melts, the whole thing will collapse in upon itself!

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!

Thanks for the replies, great info.

I e-mailed Rick, we'll see what he says.

As of now, I'm leaning towards coating the chicken wire in monster mud. For a volcano greater than 30ft, this will probably be very time consuming.

Also, I would love to hear how you had smoke come out of the top.

Lambda, my volcano was only 8 feet tall so I used a structure like this for the core (pardon my lack of artistic talent)

8 foot 2x4s for the legs, 2x4x4 foot box on the top. Top and sides made with 1/4 inch plywood, top has a 3 or 3.5 foot diameter hole cut in it. Bottom is open, it's covered with thick clear vinyl stretched over the opening and stapled like a drumhead. Clear vinyl avail in WalMart fabric section or use a cheap shower curtain. The business end of a fog machine (or 2) stick thru a hole in the side of the box. There is enough room under the box to stand, you fill the box full of fog and hit the vinyl "drumhead" - it shoots out a giant smoke ring.

This is the only picture have;

Because of the ceiling, the smoke didn't really have time to develop into a ring but outside it worked great. In the pic you can see from the shadow on the ceiling it is just starting to make a ring.

Not real sure how you would do this at the top of a 30 foot volcano, but there must be some engineering majors in your frat :D Let me know if you have any questions

Mike

Shit Mike,
That looks like a giant vape!
Let me know when they're available on Ebay.

:D

Teasin, Look's cool!

On 2010-09-20 01:12, Unga Bunga wrote:
Shit Mike,
That looks like a giant vape!
Let me know when they're available on Ebay.

:D

Teasin, Look's cool!

Thanks Unga. I guess I didn't hang out in the right crowd at college, I had to look up "vape" to see what it was :lol: