Hi, I bought a set of sponge banana's off of Ebay recently that couldn't fool a baby. I saw The Wong set, and they are pretty realistic looking, but I don't want to pay $25 for a set of two sponge banana's. I decided to try and make my own. I sculpted my banana out of oil based clay and made it as photo realistic as possible. I even added imperfections in the stem and base of the banana. It turned out to be a medium sized banana at around 8-9". I casted a mold of it out of UltraCAL 30 plaster and have a perfect two part mold for the banana. I tried to cast it out of self-skinning foam rubber but it came out not very compressionable, not like sponge balls. Does anyone know of where I can get a good sponge mixture for the banana?

Thanks.

Not sure about a sponge mixture, but Dan Garrett in Atlanta, GA (USA) has some of the best sponge bananas around. You might touch base with him.

http://members.aol.com/dangarrett/index.html

Mark.

I've never heard of a "home-molding process" for foam rubber. Reading this article would tend to make me want to pay $25 bucks:

Making Foam Rubber

Foam rubber is very simple to make/use. You buy it in a two part kit similar to epoxy. Mix A & B together and it expands to fill the mold. It cool dries so when it's ready, you de-mold it and it's ready to be airbrushed. It picks up very minute details and creates a very realistic prop. Unfortunately, like I said, the foam rubber that I used didn't yield a very compressionable prop.

Try skinning it in latex.. and then finding a 2lb soft foam. BJB makes a couple of very soft foams..

Foam like sponge balls is VERY hard to come by.

Try, http://www.smooth-on.com the foam I think you will need, is "FlexFoam-it! III". FlexFoam-it! III is not as compressionable as supersoft but I think it is close to regular sponge balls.

They will send you samples if you ask.

I made carrots in sponge. As a puppeteer we made a lot of puppets in sponge. The technique : you cut the sponge so you have the form roughly. Then you hold it under the tap and make it as wet as possible and immediately put it in the freezer. Once frozen you take it out and with a coarse sandpaper you sand of a bit untill it starts melting ( you'll notice what is possible ) and put it in the freezer again, take it out and sand, in...out etc until you have the form you want. Does not take as much time as it may sound here. Works very well. Do not sand to long in one time. Hope this helps. If you need to know more PM me.