The ferocious cat was my first attempt using Styrofoam. The material is actually Owens Corning extruded polystyrene foam insulation. The four by eight sheet of insulation was 2 inches thick. To provide additional support for the legs and tail, I embed a steel rods within the Styrofoam. The steel rods are 3/8” diameter and at the cat feet are 1/8” steel plates. At the steel plates, I welded nuts for 3/8” diameter bolts. The bolts were used to bolt a wood boards to the cat feet to prevent the cat from blowing over.
The steel rods were embedded into the Styrofoam. I was able to melt the Styrofoam by heating the steel rods. To secure the steel rods within the Styrofoam, I used spray insulation foam. Clamps were used to hold the sheets of Styrofoam together while the glue dried.
The eyes are steel half spheres. I welded steel rods to the eyes which were embedded into the Styrofoam by heating the steel. I glued the eyes using Loctite Foamboard Adhesive.
To smooth out the rough sections, I used wood filler. The wood filler is a non solvent type of wood filler. The wood filler was easy to smooth out with the Styrofoam using sandpaper. But it turned out to be a waste of time since the cement coating covered the imperfection without using the wood filler.
I original started coating the cat using Hot Wire Foam Factory All Purpose Foam Coat. When I ran out of material, I switch to cement mixture used for setting floor tile. I also added Quikrete concrete acrylic fortifier to the mixture. So far it appears to be working okay. I also tried using tile grout both sanded and unsanded, but it did not work.
