Mini Volcano

How we made our volcano….

We used an old snack container as our base. I chose it for it’s shape mainly, but we also wanted to make sure that the liquid didn’t leak out of the bottom. I hot glued the lid on and attached cardstock paper with scotch tape to the top to create a better volcano shape and a smaller opening. I hot glued the container to the throw away pan so it wouldn’t slide around while we worked. We did several layers of paper towel and news paper until the shape was the way we wanted. The first layer of all of my paper mache projects is paper towel. It’s slightly annoying to work with because once wet it falls apart easy and can be a pain to flatten out, but it dries very hard so I like to use it as a base layer for all paper mache projects. I recommend using a paint brush or sponge brush to add the paste mixture to the project then place the paper towel over and add more of the paste mixture. Using the sponge is very effective because you can dab the paste on rather than painting it on and avoid tearing the paper. Using the brushes is also very helpful if you have children like my youngest that hate the feel of the pate on their hands. After 3 or 4 layers of the paper towel we moved on to the news paper. I typically use 2 layers but we did a bit more on the bottom to make it thicker and more volcano shaped. Depending on the project I may add one more layer of paper towel just for appearance sake, another perk of the paper towel is the texture it gives. For things like the volcano the ruff texture of the dried paper towel gives it a more realistic look which is why we chose to add one finale layer. The last layer of paper towel also allowed us to mold the volcano more to a form we liked. If you use a good paste to paper towel ratio it can create a clay like material that allows you to mold fairly well. That’s it. I use this method for all of my paper mache as I said and it’s served me well!

What’s going on here?

Baking soda and vinegar react with each other this way because they exchange atoms. Baking soda is bicarbonate (NaHCO3) and vinegar is acetic acid (HCH3COO). In this reaction baking soda acts as a base and takes a proton from vinegar. The reaction releases gas because when the baking soda receives the proton, it transforms into water and carbon dioxide. The pressure builds and gives you a pretty cool volcano like reaction. Remember, if you want more of an explosion reaction rather than just the slight sputter seen in the video above you’ll want to make you volcano opening smaller. The smaller the opening the better the chances for a bursting out, volcano like reaction.