# Wales Court Cemetery Fence Build



## The_Caretaker (Mar 6, 2007)

Four years in the making&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;., it had a simple beginning as a simple pile of pallets at my local siding world.










This is no ordinary pile of pallets, these are 12 ½ foot by 4 foot pallets, that's not a typo I said 12 ½ feet. I was able to disassemble a number of the pallets and had a nice stack of lumber for my cemetery fence. Unfortunately that pile of wood sat for four years while other props and life took precedent.

I initially wanted to make my main two fence panels 8 foot high gracefully curving to 4 feet by 8 foot long, and as many secondary panels 4 foot high by 8 foot long, this had to change, more about this later. After doing research on the forums both Halloween and woodworking I determined how I was going to make my top rails of my fence. They were going to be bent lamination, bent laminations are just thin slices of wood glued into the shape you want. After cutting the 8 inch wide pallet boards into 2 ½ wide boards, I then sliced them into 20+ 2 ½ by 3/16th thick strips.










I then cut the remaining wood into 7/8th inch square pickets, where I did simple pyramid top. My Wife and Son pre-painted the pickets to make it easier to assemble and finish painting later.










The next step was to make my form for the upper rails of the fence. Since I wanted the curve of the top rail to be symmetrical, I drew half the curve out on poster board adding 4 inches to the end that would be adjacent to the pillars. This was for an offset for the pieces of 3 inch PVC pipe I was going to use for decoration. I then starting assembling pieces of 2 x 6 boards to match the final shape of the upper rail. Then using the pattern I transferred the curve of the top rail to the form, flipping it at the midpoint to complete my top rail, I then repeated this ¾ inch away from my first line. Using a jigsaw I cut just to the waste side of the lines, then using my belt sander I sanded to the line. At this point I realized that the width of my form was only had 1 ¾ inches but I had 2 ½ wide strips. I then added pieces of ¾ inch plywood to bring my form to the proper width of 2 ½ inches. I then coated the mating surfaces of the form with clear packing tape so glue would not stick to it. Finally added some clamping guides and my form was done


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## The_Caretaker (Mar 6, 2007)

I then starting laminating my four top rails, I using Gorilla glue since it has a long working time.










I wanted more of a wrought iron look to the fence where there were the pickets are square, this would also aid in assemble of the fence. To make the lower rails of the main fence and the rails for the side panels I started with a 2 x 4. I cut dados every 6 inches in the 2 x 4s, I then cut them into four 1 x 2's, marking them to make sure that I kept the same original 2 x 4 board together.



















I then ripped my top rails into two pieces, one piece is 1 ½ inches wide and the remainder is a ¾ inches wide cap piece. I then temporarily set up one of the fence panels to determine where the dados needed to be on my curved top rails. I then took my top rails and clamped them to this fence panel and transferred the location for the dados onto my top rail. I marked both sides of the top rail so that I would be able to determine the angle the dado needed to be cut at.


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## The_Caretaker (Mar 6, 2007)

At this point I started to realize that my side panels at 48 inches high were too tall, after making a quick mock up I decide to shorten the fence pickets to 39 inches, 32 inches between the top most rail and the bottom most rail, this includes a 3 inch reveal above the top most rail and four inches reveal below the bottom most rail. This also meant my secondary fence columns had to also be reduced from 48 inches to 42 inches. This also forced me to shorten the main fence panels from 96 inches (8 feet) in height to 83 inches. Once the main measurements were determined I then started laying out the first of the main fence panels. I put the two end pickets in place with the proper reveals and nailed them in place. I then started filling in the pickets in the middle, I placed each picket where it belonged with the proper reveal at top and then marked and trimmed each picket to fit and nailed it in to place.










Once all the pickets were in place I nailed the cap piece in place, for the straight rails I ripped a 1 x 2 inch board into two 1 x 1 inch boards for use as cap pieces.










We then finished painting the fence panels and attached the decorative circles. For the decorative circles of the fence I cut two pieces of 3 inch PVC pipe into 7/8th inch slices, which were sanded and pre-painted. I wouldn't have gotten the fence panels done if it wasn't for my Wife and Son doing the painting.


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## GhoulishCop (Sep 25, 2009)

Nice work, and nice easy to follow tutorial. Just not so easy to replicate. Damn you and your 12-1/2-ft. long pallets! 

Rich


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## Jacksonville Haunter (Apr 21, 2011)

They look great!!! Don't take em down just leave em up.


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## fontgeek (Jul 24, 2006)

I have a couple of questions.
First, why did you think the 48" tall fence was too tall? If it saved you a mess of material or handling problems/challenges, I can understand the change, but visually, I would have thought the taller version would be more imposing, not to mention more mentally daunting to anyone tempted to try to climb over the fence.
Second, how hard was this to store after the holiday?


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## The_Caretaker (Mar 6, 2007)

After mocking it up I realized that most TOTers were in the 48 inch range, and I wanted then to be able to look over the fence not through it. If I had pre-planned them to the shorter height I might have been able to get another panel of fence. Also the shorter size made it easier to store in my shed, only takes up a 8 foot by a 1 1/2 foot space. My shed has a gambrel roof where the peak is 8 feet.


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## fontgeek (Jul 24, 2006)

I'm not sure what, if any, difference it makes for the guests to look over rather than through the fence, but if it works for you...


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## stick (Jan 21, 2009)

The fence looks great and you should be very proud on the way it turn out.


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