Thread: Cemetery Gate. As close as you get to the real thing.

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Finished product:


Creating a cemetery gate out of plywood, styro, and coating with morter. Being morter, I guess it's the closest you get to making a gate without actually making one out of stone.

The only thing i'm not sure about is if I should coat it with some type of spray sealer.

they look great!!! I love the look of the brick sections

That thing is going to be sweet! I love the arch. Really cool idea.

Great looking prop!

The arch looks great .... though I don't really get the brick under stone .... but you have such a really cute helper!

Yeah, you wouldn't see the brick on old construction. New construction, yes. They use the cheap fake stone that they plaster onto the brick.

Really, it just needed something else to make it pop out a bit.

Metal gate now.

I used carpet strips that I screwed together, mainly because I had them sitting around. Yes, I stabbed myself a few times on the carpet tacks. Pounded all the nails down, spray painted black, then using a art brush, touched it up with silver paint to make it look steel looking. Working on a Keep Out sign now to attach to the chains.

They look fantastic.

How do you work with mortar? Is it troweled on or is it a sheet like what it looks like. Also, how was it to Dremel, hard - easy? Very cool idea.

I actually got the idea from when I did my fish tank. I made a background from ideas posted on aquarium forums. Attached pic of my aquarium. Obviously, quite waterproof, but I might add a later of some type of spray sealer for the gate.

What you do is put the sheets of styro on the plywood with tube liquid nails or something like that. Put some dry wall screws into the styro to keep it tight in place. Sink them down a little bit though. Then use your dremel to make a design in the styro.

You want to make the morter like soup. Then use a paint brush to brush a coat over the styro. Let it set really good. You should also mist it with a spray bottle to set harder. Then you do another coat but you make it a little thicker, still soupy. You'll know if it's not soupy enough because it will be very hard to spread with a paint brush if it's not liquidy enough. let it set again and repeat once more a little less soupy.

For the brick, you can buy morter dye. I used terra cotta for the brick, and some black to make it a bit darker between around all the stone. I did that on the last coat.

I'm still waiting on the arch to finish drying so I can put the last coat on. Then I'll attach it to the columns and take some pics.

Took a few shots with the gate. The gate will actually be open when I put it in front of the house. Going to make it hanging off and open to the inside.

Arch is almost ready for the last coat.