This was as close as you can get to a last-minute project for something this large. On the Saturday morning before Halloween, I finished a last bit of paint and started putting up the columns that, less than a week before, had been flat sheets of masonite sitting quietly in Home Depot.

• Requirements
• Design
• Shopping List
• Construction
• Setup
• To Do

• Related Pages

The chief reason came to me while thinking about how our graveyard is lit, especially with the lightning. We have two conflicting requirements: (a) we want the gravestones to face the street so that passers by can read them and (b) we want the lightning to flash on the faces of the tombstones. But the lightning lamps are large, and the only place to put them so that they aim properly is in a small tree near the curb. This isn't really an ideal platform, because it is small, leafy, and outside the fenced perimeter and thus succeptible to vandalism. This left me with mounting the lightning lamps somewhere inside the fenced area, where they would be a distraction. Ideally, the lamps would be hidden inside the fence, providing protection for the lamps, long "throw" of light, and hiding the lamps. That's when I decided that adding columns to the fence would give me a place to mount the lamps - behind, or ideally inside, the columns.

Once I realized that the columns could be used to hide things, it became clear that they could be used to hide a lot of things:

• lightning lamps
• security equipment
• power distribution equipment
• speakers

Besides, the columns make the fence look larger, more imposing, and add an extra dimension of reality.

When we reached Home Depot, we started looking at the goods available in 4x8' sheets. Other haunters have used plywood, so we started looking there, then wafer board. Everything was expensive and heavy. We didn't need this to be heavy permanent construction. We just needed something that looked solid.

We settled on masonite sheeting. Thin, light, and inexpensive.

We asked the gentleman in the lumber area to rip each sheet into thirds, lengthwise. This is an important step - it saves you a lot of time, and is probably as accurate as you would do yourself. Best of all, it turned out to be free.

Construction

We let lumber yard do the hard work: cutting the 4x8' sheets into strips, lengthways.

The only remaining precision cuts are to cut the strips to length.

Every joint is glued and screwed.

All screws go into pilot holes drilled with a countersinking attachment.

Our basic assembly for a column is the "side". This side is completed, featuring an interior frame of 2x2" lumber.

Once you have a couple of sides, a new piece of masonite can be used to join them together.

Every piece of masonite skin is supported by interior 2x2" lumber, so this new sheet will require some cross-pieces.

Wherever a column mates with the PVC fence, we cut rectangular holes in the column, sized and positioned to match the 1x2" ends of the fence.

David does the cutting with a saber saw, after the rest of the assembly is complete.

The columns are held together by a lot of screws, and we didn't want to spackle them all. We settled for slapping the more obvious screws with a thin batch of Monster Mud (latex paint and drywall compound).

We were concerned that the masonite might suffer when exposed to outdoor dampness. Every inch of the outside of every column was coated with oil-based Kilz primer. The top and bottom two feet of each column got double or triple coats. This was all done with a roller.

We also put a couple of coats of primer around the side holes intended for the PVC fence.

The final finish was cheap gray latex paint.

The pieces go together with snap-in ease: put down a section of fence; push a column up next to it; put down a section of fence; push a column up next to it.

The corners were easy to set up, too.

The columns are surprisingly light. This is a good thing when you have to cart them around, but might make you wonder whether or not they will stand up by themselves. We approached this issue as follows:

• Each column is attached to two pieces of PVC fence, each of which is rigidly mounted with rebar stakes.
• Make sure that the columns are level. If they are on uneven ground, you must shim them to insure that they go up straight.
• Columns with open backs were weighted down using bags of lead shot.

A 25-pound bag seems to work well. We used #5 shot because it was the cheapest we could find.

The result looks real enough that a wandering hardcopy spammer left us some advertising material.

• basic construction [this page]
• painting
• mounting gargoyles on fence columns

Please see our other pages on PVC fences:

• basic construction
• update

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