How can I make/find cubes of crushable white foam?

Question

This is an odd query but I'll try to explain where it's coming from. I am looking for a way to create a material (or find retail) kinda like styrofoam but crushable like a dried mud ball. Weird, huh? If anyone is a Star Trek fan and remembers the episode with the Kelvens who turned people into crystalline "cubes" -- actually cubes with their corners hacked off--that's what I'm trying to re-create. They were white, seem to have started as 4" cubes, and looked rather like sponges but they crumbled when you squeezed.

So that's it. Quite a challenge, I think, but you just never know who's got the knowledge you need. Thanks, all!

I can hardly wait to give your idea a try, artistpw! Thanks and I'll post here how it turns out.

Answer 1

Hi:

I remembered them too. I was able to get a little video of this episode by going over to www.startrek.com and doing a search on 'kelvan' and from there, it let me see a little video of that episode that showed those cubes.

The material sort of looks like pumice stones that are used to remove calluses, but those are too hard to crush in your hand. you would just need to find the material to make the items from.

You might be able to do this -
Perlite looks a lot like styrofoam granules, but it is a rock product that has a lot of uses, and you can get it from garden centers. You could probably mix some perlite up in a medium like a flour and water paste (like that which might be used for paper mache) - you would probably want to cook the paste to make it thicker, and then mix the perlite in. (I'm thinking of a thick paste sort of like the flour mixture made for cream puff type pastries - but without the sugar, eggs or fat) After heating, you could probably mix in a drop or two of Campho-Phenique for its preservative properities (I've used this for making pastel sticks, and it works well to prevent mold from forming on a gum tragacanth solution - but it can't take heating). I don't know how permanent you might want to make these, but I think as long as you dry this out well, you would run into any problems with moldering, and the items might be able to be crushed in your hand.

You might be able to dry items made with this concoction in a slow oven (at about 200 deg F).

I'd probably experiment with this mixture before going to the trouble of making a mold.

Once you have your compound to mold, you could sculpt a cube like this using a clay like Plastlina and get a mold making compound. Check out the Compleat Sculptor website for a lot of supplies to make molds, and if you check out the wetcanvas website, the sculpture channel has at least one step-by-step article that has directions for making a mold from a 3d object. (Wetcanvas is a wonderful online artist community, and basic membership there is free. There are currently more than 110,000 worldwide members. You can browse the site as a guest if you want, too.)

Hope this helps and at least gives you some ideas. Email me if you want, and I can try to help more - I like trying to figure stuff out like this.

Answer 2

I would try drywall, it is white and crumbles, I dont think it would be hard to cut cubes with the right tools.

Answer 3

Could be sperm with discarge. If you or her are concerned go to the doctor. If you are young please use your head and don't get pregnant. Just because she is on the patch doesnt mean she wont get pregnant. When you are young and breath wrong you can get pregnant. Have fun, drive fast and take chances

Answer 4

Buy a bag of disposable diapers and soak them in water, then break them apart. The stuff in the center will act sort of like what you describe.
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