I am building a 3' x 10' frame of 1'' x 2''. I am planning to hang it from the ceiling joists. I am planning to use pink foam for the backdrop. My question is I will have to seam a 2' piece to the 8' piece. I will support the back of the seam with a 1"x 4". What or how do you folks seam these together for painting??
Quick and dirty is to use duct tape. I favor the aluminum foil type for flexibility and strength.
If you have enough depth available, take a thinner piece of foam glue to the back. Stagger the joint so it's the reverse of the backdrop. You can also do this right behind the joint and omit over the rest if need be. Or you can use a piece of 1/4" luaun or 1/8" masonite and do the same for less depth, plus a solid surface to use for attaching, etc.
Foam safe tube type adhesives take time to set, but will work. So will wood glues like Titebond III. For all those, lay the glue in S curves to let a little air penetrate to quicken setting. I like water based Dap contact cement myself, as it just needs to surface dry for a half hour or so before applying to bond.
BTW, I assume you're painting with water-based paint, as most spray can paint will attack foam. However, you CAN use spray cans IF you first prime them with some that is foam safe and can act as a barrier. I have good success with Zinser 1-2-3, which comes in both standard form and spray cans. Then I can use spray cans and get pretty good results.
Super easy and quick to cut some mountains and spray them up with this method.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Great idea. Thank you.
Why are you using pink foam for your backdrop? There are less expensive materials that will hold up as well or better and most will take a wider variety of adhesives and paints.
Your local sign shop may be able to get you a 2'x10' piece of styrene. Rolled aluminium flashing works and you can also get rolled aluminium that is prepainted which gives you a good undercoat. You could also use 1/4" foam board if you do the seams as mentioned above, much less expensive than the pink stuff, even in 1/2" sheets.
Good luck,
Richard
Richard,
Can't speak for the OP, but there's at least 3 reasons I use pink foam backdrops(+). Yes, it's a backdrop, but it's often something more and that's a good thing. I do use aluminum flashing to paint the sky on, but foam forms the "ground" part of the visual.
Foam can usually be arranged to be "freestanding." OK, maybe not quite, but way easier to do than plastic or aluminum. If you don't have a handy wall to mount it on, this really simplifies things.
Some what related, foam is moveable. Virtually all the foam backdrops I use can be moved for access, adding trees, etc, cleaned, whatever. This also fits in with my Cascade Branch approach to scenery, where around 75% of it consists of removable "pop-ups" although I wouldn't fit through most of them.
Very important to me is that foam can be 3D. Modeling mountains, good depth of visual field helps the effect. A knife cutting at an angle as seen in my example pic is very easy and effective in bringing out this depth of field. Other effects are also possible. And you can mount trees on it with a little care. Since there are more than 7,500 trees on my layout, they have to go somewhere...
A couple of other potential benefits are that foam is sound deadening and the cost is reasonable, although yes more expensive then some altenratives. If you just want something to paint on, there are alternatives, because of foam's versatility. BTW, note my trick with priming the foam, as this solves most of the issues with painting it.
A few more examples now that I rebooted and the 'puter is happy now to throw up more pics.
Doubled up foam to make a distant mountain range
Foam as part of a more 3D backdrop
Another similar
Mike,
Guess we're looking at a matter of word usage. You said you used aluminium for your sky, and I think of the backdrop as the furthest part of the scene, the sky and anything painted on that level of scenery I used 1/4" plywood (forgot to mention that option) as my "freestanding" scenic divider. I can see how the use of the foam placed just in front of the sky can add additional depth to a scene. I guess the question is how much of the scenery is backdrop? Probably we each have our own perception, just need to understand others thoughts.
Have fun,
Yeah, that's it, which is why I noted it was a bit more expansive definition than I thought you were using. I do have those sorts of backdrops, but they're labor intensive and rely on more than the most basic art skills. Haven't done one in awhile
Thinking outside the box on what a backdrop is actually made the whole process easier for me. I tend to think in layers. I also use evergreen tree and mountain stickers applied directly to the backdrop in places where appropriate. Those are easy. Then throw up some foam mountains and I'm done. It even looks good with minimal effort.