Things that Don't Fit Elsewhere

This year's Halloween project was a bit more ambitious than other years. In order to try and keep kids from running through all the props and hidden extension cords, I have been using some long stakes and fake cobwebs. Those only work so well, and every year I have kids tripping on electrical and knocking over or stepping on props.

This year was different. I created about 70 feet of rod iron looking fence to enclose areas to keep kids out of. Since I was on a really short time frame, I only did perimeter fence, but it really couldn't have worked much better!

The Design

The first piece of this project was to decide on a design for the fence. I simply drew a few designs on some paper, then did a quick search online to see what I could find. I did find a fence design that I liked:

I then combined this design with some photoshop magic using some of my sketches to come up with the following. Obviously, I am not winning any awards with this image hack job, but it was just for my reference anyway.:

The Materials

As I was making sketches and image hacking, I had a pretty good idea of what I was going to use for each of the parts of the fence. For the "rods" I decided I could use 1/2" PVC pipe, and then use some 1x3 furring strips for the horizontals. I figured I could use some cross-sections of 6" PVC pipe for the circles, which left me only with the finials. I was able to find plastic finials that matched what was in this picture kingmetals.com.

I decided to draw everything out again to scale with measurements and found that lengths of about 7ft 7in would work out with 7 tall rods, 12 short rods, and 12 circles. That works out great since the 1x3 furring strips come in 8 foot lengths. I didn't want the fence to be too short, or it would just be another one of those fake-looking props you can find in a store. I decided I wanted to make the fence about 4 feet tall. I decided that simply making the tall rods be twice the length of the short ones would work well. Therefore, I needed seven 4 ft rods and six 2 ft rods for each fence. 40 ft of pipe for each fence - how lucky can one get? That comes to four full lengths of the 1/2" PVC pipes (they come in 10 ft pieces).

I would need something to fasten this all together. Now I could have gone with wood screws and tried to hide them on the back side of the fence, but that would be difficult when it came time to do the circles up top or putting on the finials. I decided to use an adhesive instead. I wouldn't need to hide the adhesive because I was going to use a caulk gun for application, and when painted, it would look like the welds you see in the photo!

I made a trip over to Lowe's (it's the closest to me) and picked up all the material. I got it home and laid it out in the garage until I had time to come back and work.

The Process

Going in Circles

First step was to cut up the 6" PVC to make the circles that would be used. This ended up being more time-consuming than I thought it would just because I didn't have a band saw. I did these all by hand using a handheld jig saw. Luckily, I didn't need to be too accurate in making the circles.

Drilling the Wood

Once I had the circles cut, I'd need to get those horizontals ready for the rods. I figured the best way to do that would be to take a 7/8" paddle bit and bore out the holes for the pipe to fit into. That way I wouldn't have to worry about bumping things while gluing while keeping the spacing correct. I was able to enlist a little help from my son and his friends, but they gave up after about 20 minutes.

Chopping the Rod

The only other material prep I would need is to get the lengths of the rod cut. I got my son to come out and measure two 4 ft sections on three pipes, and one 4 ft and two 2 ft pieces on the fourth (nine times), then I cut them all up.

Sticking it Together With Caulk

The next step is the assembly. This is actually the most difficult step in the process. Lining everything up on sawhorses seemed to make this process bearable. Because the furring strips are never perfectly straight, some adjustments had to be made to compensate. First I inserted the long rods into the holes where they belonged. I then used a tape measure to make the horizontals be as close as I could to being straight. Once I had those lined up, I inserted the short rods into the remaining holes. After all the rods were inserted into the holes, it was time to "weld" it all together with the caulk.

Rings and Tips

The final part of the assembly was to glue in the rings and the topmost horizontal piece. I used some wood clamps to hold them all in place as I caulked one side of the fence. I let that set, then flipped it over and did the same on the other side. While waiting for the second side of the rings to set, I added the finials to the ends of the rods. I happened to have some plastic skulls from a previously broken prop that I used on top of the middle rod.

Paint it Black

The final step of making these props was to paint them black. I had considered using a gray overcoat to "age" them, but figured that it will be too dark to see that detail anyway, and these aren't focal pieces to my annual graveyard display. It took an average of one and a half cans of spray paint per fence length.