My DIY Fake wood. First attempt

[CrazyAirborne]

I am making "vines" so I dont really want holes or anything for crickets to get into. If you wanted to make larger diameter ones, you could make them look like hollow logs and allow your pets to go inside as well. This wasnt what I was going for this round.

Step 1: Set up your work area. **Definitely need some sort of mask as the PVC dust is crazy, and some eye protection, my normal glasses still allowed alot of crap to get in my eyes** .You need a bucket of water, a towel, your torch, lighter, dremel. PVC pipe of course. I also used a large screwdriver and a socket wrench extension and a old grill tongs to help me manipulate the hot PVC when I'm bending it. If you have a metal pipe that has a nice bend in it, you could have that handy as well, because you could slide it into the hot pvc pipe and make the bend identical and then slide it out when cooled, but only for a bend near the end, don’t get something stuck in the middle of your pvc pipe!!! I also had a soaked pair of gloves that I used when I needed to grab onto the warmer end.



Step 2: You could either bend first or dremel first, youll probably be doing both multiple times. In these pics I bent first, because you can see I am making a crazy shaped vine that will be going into a GS background. I dremeled afterwards. I don’t have a pic of my initial bending. But basically I got the picture in my mind of how I wanted it, then I heated up those areas where the bend would be, then using the socket extension, bent it in the desired shape. After I had all my bends, I began dremeling.

This is the messiest part and pretty much sucks. That PVC dust gets on everything. Here is a closer pic to show the texture I was achieving.

Then after you get done with that, u can torch again to make the white PVC brown. This is tricky. I found that a lower flame with smooth sweeping motions works the best, kind of like spray painting. I still don’t have this step done very well. Its really easy to have the torch heat up the PVC too fast and make a circle too dark.

But if you do make it too dark, you can always re-dremel. Basically it takes a lot of trial and error, and I'm still learning so this is where I'm at so far.

My first 2 logs.






More/better pieces/pics on page 2!!!

[Klowne]

that's awesome, post some how to info on it, looks like something that I could use in my 20 I am building

[Epiphile]

Incredible- so this is just carved and burnt? I'd love to hear more about it.

[Ozymandias]

have to agree those look pretty good.

[CrazyAirborne]

thanks everyone!!!
yeah well all i did was run my dremel with the sanding wheel(?) (its pictured) down the tube, lengthwise, to give it some texture, slowly working my way around it. Then, making sure to wipe all the pvc dust off the pipe, I then used the torch very gently to burn it, just enough to make the low areas lighter colored, and the higher areas darker (since they are closer to the torch) after u torch it for awhile, (wear gloves) the pvc is hot and is bendable. you can bend it into the shape u want, and then I had a 5 gal bucket I would dunk it in to cool it into place. then you can dremel more or torch more or whatever. the dremel basically lightens the colors up, and the torch darkens them, so I would redremel over the areas that got too dark(burnt) from the torch. the entire process takes very little time. This is the original thread that gave me the idea. He has a lot more practise then i do. but ill get there Do It Yourself Fake Wood...the cheap way! - FrogForum These ones are way better then mine!

[CrazyAirborne]

for the piece that has more obvious lines, (bottom piece) I used the torch to make it really dark, pretty much black, then dremeled. this allowed me to really make the pattern pop out, and then I used the torch again just to brown up the white dremel lines a little bit

[CrazyAirborne]

the best part of it all is no hassle with paints! the texture is nice and grippy for the frogs, and PVC is cheap!!!!! no mold, no rot, easy to clean!

[froggsong]

NICE!!! I really like this... Did someone say sticky? no? lol... I'll stick it anyway!

It would be awesome if you could write up the detailed steps and maybe do a video or a picture log on it. This is a technique we haven't seen much of (I think we've seen it once or twice a long time ago), so more info and pics would greatly benefit the site.

Oh, I almost forgot! If you want to be SURE that no crix can get into the pipes, just plug them with some foam (either a plug cut from sheet foam or a quick spray of some expanding foam).

[beckdg]

that is sweet and so simple!

[froggsong]

omg... I just looked at the thread on FrogNet, and that guy is amazingly talented. THAT is awesome!!!

Your's are good too, but my god, his are so intricate and realistic! I DO have a length of PVC just laying around; I might try my hand at this for the corn snake.

I wonder if the black pipe is ok to use?