Jervis Shopping Centre Christmas display

While working at Prop Me up I got to build a 20meter "Wall of Ice" as an entrance walk way to lead to their Santa Grotto.  It is was my first build while working with them & I learned some quick & hand tricks when working with fiberglass that I'll use in the future.

Each section of wall was carved out of Styrofoam blocks, we got two per sheet.

Once the basic shape was done they where carved up to give the impression of icebergs. Since this was going to be two long walls of ice each end was carved so that it match in hight & detail so it match the next piece.

Two quick coats of Jesmonite later, tinted blue to make the applying that much visually easier, & the block is ready for fiberglassing.

A singe layer, done is two stages, first the front, then the back, with the help of heat lamps in between to speed up the curing stage was all that was need to cover the blocks. Fiberglass paper was also applied before the resin dried to help keep the fiberglass as smooth as possible. Once it was fully cured a light bit was sanding was involved to get rid of all sharp edges, air bubbles & bits of fiberglass left sticking out.

One last coat of resign, mixed with a smoothing agent to coat the fiberglass to make it ready for painting. This is where the heavy sanding is involved. These blocks where going to be out in public, in a shopping centre, with loads of kids walking by them. We hand to make sure every square inch of them was perfectly smooth so that little fingers woould not get cut on them.

Then once finished, repeat 20 more times. The main problem with this project was space. By the time I was done making the last few bricks we where running out of places to store them.

Then it was off to painting. Just a base coat of blue& streaks of dark blue & white for highlights. Here they are all laid out in the Jervis Shopping Centre