[Guest]

Anyone know how to make fake tree stumps out of fiberglass or a website that does? This display is awesome:

 

[Guest]

From my understanding you need to make a base for it from foam or wire mesh. Then you use fiberglass cloth with resin to build it up. The finer details and painting is where the most time will be spent. I believe you have to use acrylic paint and not enamel. Then you need to put a clear coat over the paint. You can do all types of things with the fiberglass cloth such as rivers waterfalls and ponds.

When I build my custom viv I plan on doing something like this but using the fiberglass cloth and epoxy paint to seal the Plywood. The hardest thing with this process is the creativity it takes to design. The easiest way to make the tree roots would probaly be to use PVC pipe and elbows to give the basic shape or a wire hanger with newspaper wrapped around it.

Hopes this helps.

Mike P.

 

[Ridge]

You could email Clyde Peeling at Reptileland since he built those tanks for the Chorus of Frogs exhibit, I believe he used a resin mold of an actual tree to make this one.

 

[EverettC]

If someone can tell me where to get all of that stuff I can probably do it. I make scenery for tabletop games and always wanted to put it in a frog tank. (If anyone plays warhammer let me know )

 

[Ryan]

I dontplay warhammer but am waiting for the new game to come out for computer. It looks awesome.

 

[Guest]

I emailed Clyde about his displays and this is what he replied. All I can say is WOW! :mrgreen:

Our company builds all exhibits in-house. We're glad you like the frog displays and we do design and build exhibits for other institutions however a single unit sells for approximately $30,000 which makes it somewhat prohibitive for the home market. Each unit is totally self contained with reservoir, filtrations, misting system, plant waterer, etc. and the mud and rockwork is handcrafted. .
____________________
Clyde Peeling, Director
Clyde Peeling's Reptiland

 

[Guest]

All the materials that I had said you would need as far as fiberglass cloth and fiberglass resin can be bought from home depote. You can also get the wire mesh there. As far as the fiberglass cloth goes it is about $6 for a 5ft by 9 ft peice if I remeber correctly and the Fiberglass resin was something like $25 for a gallon. I am not sure how much you would need but I image at least 2 gallons of the resin and quite a few packs of the cloth. I would recomend at least four layers of the cloth if just using the wire mesh and nothing else for support but could be mistaken.

Mike P.

 

[EverettC]

I think I wanna try this I'll do it over the winter since I have nothing better to do. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions let me know before I do somethings stupid.

Everett

 

[Ridge]

Here is a link to some pictures of the other displays from the exhibit.

http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/bigstr ... ts&.src=ph

 

[Guest]

oops

 

[Guest]

wow, that trunk is truly incredible. On George Cramer's site he showed pictures of fake tree limbs that were made from melting down pvc and then painting on it, it looked pretty realistic but the tree trunk in that pic is the best i've seen.

EverettC*
My friend recently dragged me into the warhammer store at the mall, and 2 nerds actually got in a fistfight after arguing on wether or not his dragon killed the other guy's bat monster, i've never seen so much slapping in my life :lol: ...looks like a fun game.

 

[Moe]

While i cant do anything like that, i had terrariums with stumps in them before.

What i did was take a piece of firewood stump, cut it in half, and layed it in the middle of the terrarium (siliconed to the back). From the base of the stump, i had everything branching out. For example, i sloped the substrate downward in every direction. I used great stuff background with cocohusk. Next i took a couple large twigs and branches from outside, and "punched" them into the foam (again, branching out of the stump). The result is amazing, and probably the best terrarium idea i tryed.

I did not use any terrestrial plants, just moss. However i used broms and other epiphytes.

M.N

 

[Guest]

moe

That sounds like an ideal thumbnail breeding tank w/ all the broms. Have any pics?

 

[Moe]

No i dont keep terrariums anymore. Half my frogs died for no reason, probably some disease.

Im just restarting from scratch. So ill be hoping to do a tank like that again.

M.N

 

[Guest]

Custom Ecos, show a little on how to do this making waterfalls but not the tree stumps. They are located on the links page or you can go through the link below. You might try to email them and see what they tell you. I would be interested in what they say, but I dont expect any such place to give out to much info on how they do things because they would loose bussiness if they gave away to much info and people started making terriums like this by there self. I tis a same that only a small handful of people are willing to share some info in this area because I would love to build one my self. I will be building my own Viv that is going to be about 4 ft long 3 ft high and 2 ft deep but, it is a real PITA trying to fiqure out details of how to do this and that and make it all work out. I have a basic plan on what I want and how to accomplish it but money beign tight it will be a slow and on going process of getting materails and building it in stages.

My basic plans are to build the base of the viv with stand as one whole unit with wheels on the bottom to make moving it around a little easier. The whole thing will be out 5 to 5 1/2ft tall. The area where the viv will be will be epoxy glued and screwed together. After this is done I will most likely use the fiberglass cloth to waterproof the viv are with a couple coats of epoxy paint. This is what Homer had done with his custom Viv. Then comes the part of how to exactly build up the interior and make it look pleasing aand the rest of the stuff. I have plenty of Ideas on how to do this but I am still a was away from this stage and have plenty of time to make final decisions.

Well I think that is enough rambling on for now. Hopefully you can get some ideas or info and we couls share some differnt ideas.

Mike P.


http://www.angelfire.com/oh3/customecos/

 

[Ryan]

Im working on something, started a week ago, ill post results.