Dissolving Styrofoam

Griffin decided to carve some bowls out of Styrofoam. It was easy to carve with the dremel tool because it's so soft. Mom didn't like it because it made a mess of  little beads of foam all over the floor. Mom was also worried that Griffin might breathe the dust. Then Griffin decided to spray paint one of the bowls he had carved.

He discovered that the paint made the foam dissolve. So he decided to take it one step further. He took a foam block about two inches square and four inches tall, and coated it in several layers of paint. He dipped the the block in outdoor latex house paint, which is water-based. He waited until the thick layers of paint were completely dry. Then, he took it outside where there was plenty of ventilation and had Mom pour paint thinner on the exposed foam. The paint thinner dissolved away most of the foam, leaving the skin of latex paint behind. This worked really well to dissolve the foam, but it also softened the latex paint a bit. So he decided for the next block that it was better to gently carve out the foam instead.