Building Fencing!

Hey guys,

This weekend was quite productive, for after three years of planning I have finally finished the last of the "iron fencing" that surrounds the Hollow.

The first year that we did our fake iron fencing we used it to lay out the path that everyone follows as the pass through the Hollow.  I knew that when we did it I would one day hope to have our fake iron fencing surround the entire graveyard. 

The second year we expanded our iron fencing to line the front part of the graveyard, the part that backs up against our sidewalk.

And finally, this year, I built the fencing that would run along both sides of the graveyard and end at the house.

Last year I showed how our "iron fencing" was built but for those who are new to the blog and don't want to scroll down to last year I will show you again.

As always, click the pic for a lager image...

The rails are constructed from 1x2's that are 8' long.  Our fencing has 13 pickets so it's just a little math to figure out the spacing.  Once you got that figured, simply drill the holes for the pickets.

Our pickets are made from 1/2" PVC and their lengths are alternating 36" and 40".

Spacing of the rails is whatever you think looks good.  For our fencing, the bottom rails are 6" from the ground and the top rails are 6" from the top of the 36" pickets (or 30" from the ground).  I use one drywall screw to attach the picket to each rail (or 2 screws per picket).

Once constructed, paint the fence with flat, black spray paint.  Our fencing takes 3 cans per fence.  Don't get expensive paint, that is a waste of money.  I've found that every home good store has a 99 cent can of black spray paint.  That is perfect for this project.

And that really is all there is to it.  Be warned, despite it's very simple construction, the fencing is time consuming in their construction.  This is simply due to the scale of the project.  This year I built six fences and it takes about an hour per fence.  That breaks down to about 30 minutes to construct and 30 minutes to paint. 

I thought I would get faster the more I built these things but looking back I discovered that to be the average all three years I've built them.  I'm sure there are some people who could do it faster than me though so go for it and give it a try.

Later.