Clark Rubber stores have sheets of polystyrene in a multitude of thicknesses and sizes at very reasonable prices.

Just make sure you add some weight to the bottom of your tombstones, or they'll wobble unconvincingly.

Cheers

Lee Sheppard
- Keeping it strictly amateur -

Fire risk with polystyrene is serious, it has caused many deaths over the years, mainly in nightclubs, but most polystyrene products are not legal to use on stage.

Ring Simon at Polystyrene Industries in Canning Vale.

www.meltheco.org.au

Small safety point...many years ago I set out to create a stone wall using chunks of polystyrene stuck on a sheet of board. Roughly hacked into stone like shapes bits were duly stuck on board in wall pattern, it was meant to look like a weathered drystone wall you understand. Roughly hacked poly needed to be rounded, no sharp edges (well, very few) on a drystone wall.

Some bright spark suggested applying meths with a paint brush to the edges to melt the poly, thus rounding the edges. Lovely, except you need a lot of ventilation when using meths this way. Apparently I finished the wall but spent some time talking to the fairies who were wondering what I was doing to their wall.... hmmm, lesson learned.

It looked fab once I'd recovered and painted it all with shades of grey and mossy bits, very realistic, but was it worth the price?

If you want smooth or weathered tombstones do any melting outside...and wear a mask even if you are outside too, just in case. Scottish pixies are nasty!!

Rapunzel

"Life is too short to stuff a mushroom"

Please rest assured on the safety issue, folks. It isn't as though our entire set will be built of the stuff. It's only a small prop - a tombstone.

There are plenty of other routinely used materials in theatre that are capable of burning very nicely, but we generally get along quite well with common sense.

If you really must use styrene and want texture (I'd prefer a painted effect on flats myself - far less susceptible to damage), then I'd recommend using a hot air gun rather than solvents, which are too unpredictable and uncontrollable.

Per Ardua Ad Astra