# How to create wooden pilings the Pirate Way!



## IMU (Apr 8, 2009)

Faux Wood Pilings

Materials:
4" Conduit (PVC or Fiberglass)
Liquid Nails Panel Adhesive
Monster Mud 
Wood or Drywall Screws
Latex Paint Colors (depending on your taste)
Hot Glue
Plastic Spoon & Cup

Optional:
¾" Manila Rope
Barnacles (bought or cast yourself)

*Step 1:*
Cut your conduit to the length of your choice. I wanted to have 3 at different heights: 33", 26" & 17" tall. I used fiberglass conduit for this project because it was free.









*Step 2:*
Use screws to attach each piling together. I used 1 ½" drywall screws since I had these in my garage from another project.









*Step 3:*
Cut cardboard disks to use for the tops of the pilings and attach with hot glue.









*Step 4:*
Mix up your _premade_ Monster Mud with the Liquid Nails Panel Adhesive at a ratio of 1:1 (1 part MM to 1 part LN). in a plastic cup. Note: My Monster Mud (Joint Compound and Latex Paint) mix ratio is 4:1.


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## IMU (Apr 8, 2009)

*Step 5:*
Apply the MM / LN mixture with the back of a spoon following the "grain" of your piling. You don't want it to be smooth, leave the ridges and keep them all going in the same direction. Leave it to dry for 24 hours.


















*Step 6:*
Add a dark paint "wash" (a brown for this project) to your surface. My wash mix is a 1:1 Water/Paint. [Ignore the spray foam at the bottom of this picture; it's from another piling I'm making].









*Step 7:*
Use a light color (a white for this project) and dry brush everything to make the "wood" grain really pop.









_Optional:_
*Step 8:*
Add your Manila Rope, glue on some Barnacles and add some water stains to the lower part of the pilings.









Hope this explains my method for creating some faux wooden pilings. Good luck and ask if I didn't explain myself on any of these steps.


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## spinwitch (Jun 14, 2009)

Very realistic! Lighter weight than the real thing, too.


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## PirateLady (Jul 23, 2010)

Nice job explaining the process.


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## fick209 (Aug 31, 2009)

a simple project with a great realistic end result. Very nice job on these and thanks for posting!


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## shar (Jun 19, 2010)

Great how-to! And like others have said: so light weight and easy storing. Just brilliant!!


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## Spooky1 (Aug 25, 2008)

Nice job, now get to work on that prop ocean.


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## RoxyBlue (Oct 6, 2008)

Spooky1 said:


> Nice job, now get to work on that prop ocean.


And the prop squid, too

Perhaps you could add a note on how you made the barnacles as well. I remember some discussion a while ago in someone else's thread looking for ways to make them, so it would be helpful to add that here.


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## IMU (Apr 8, 2009)

RoxyBlue said:


> And the prop squid, too
> 
> Perhaps you could add a note on how you made the barnacles as well. I remember some discussion a while ago in someone else's thread looking for ways to make them, so it would be helpful to add that here.


Well, molding and casting is a seperate how-to and I'm not real good at making molds and casting. :googly:

But, for those of you who might be curious ... I made a plaster mold of some fake barnacles, used 100% silicone as the casting medium and then just painted and glued on to the pilings.


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## Uruk-Hai (Nov 4, 2006)

These are so awesome looking!!! What a relatively simple prop but it will really add to your whole theme. Great idea to use the conduit. The barnacles are the icing on the cake and look perfect. My only minor comment would be that you could have made the groups of pilings at diff. heights to vary the look - seen altogether they look identical. No one will notice except us obsessive detail hounds.  Great job!


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## IMU (Apr 8, 2009)

Yeah ... but I have this "problem" with things not matching! :googly: Besides, they all have to have at least the tallest one the same height (to keep the TOTers out). 

Glad you liked them.


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## JohnnyAppleseed (Apr 8, 2009)

Beautiful in a piling sorta way! So the spray foam one in the pic, pilings buried in the sand? Just a need to know whats next......


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## Frighteners Entertainment (Jan 24, 2006)

Very cool!!


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## The Pod (Sep 15, 2009)

Very nice job. They look great!


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## IMU (Apr 8, 2009)

Thanks everyone for the kind words. 

I'm doing a water test on this coating to see how well it holds up to being wet. I have a piece of foam floating in water that has just the coating on it. Then I'll dry it out (if it survives), paint it with latex paint and float it back in water.


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## apetoes (Feb 23, 2010)

Very nice work, what a great idea!


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## tot13 (Jul 25, 2007)

IMU said:


> Yeah ... but I have this "problem" with things not matching! :googly: Besides, they all have to have at least the tallest one the same height (to keep the TOTers out).
> 
> Glad you liked them.


I have the same "problem". Also, when doing multiples of the same prop, it really helps and is quicker to do them all the same. In reference to Urik's comment, and since there are three pilings in each cluster . . . why not just rotate a different piling to the front center? That would give multiple looks. You could also swap the positions of the two smaller pilings.


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## zombietoxin (Aug 3, 2010)

THAT is definitely going in the note book! Thanks for sharing!!!


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## Toktorill (Sep 15, 2007)

Gorgeous!!! And just a generally great way to make fake wood grain textures!


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## IMU (Apr 8, 2009)

*Testing Update!*

Well, I have been testing out the texture for how it would hold up to moisture ... and I was very surprised at the results.

I coated a piece of foam with the LN/MM mix and let it dry for 24 hours. Then I floated it in a container of water for 24 hours. After that it was removed and checked for "damage". I was a little surprised ... the coating as a little soft, but nothing peeled off and fell apart.

Then it sat to dry for 24 hours. After, it was given a latex paint wash (1:1 paint:water) and sat again for 24 hours. It was again floated in a container of water for 72 hours.

After 3 days of surface water exposure, the coating held up fine. It was not as soft as the raw coating, and the texture retained its shade.

I would suspect that if you put a varnish over it that it would held up even better. I just wanted to see how the "new" material would do exposed to "weather".

Hope this helps if any of you decide to give it a try!


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## Terra (Apr 13, 2009)

Just saw this thread and the pilings are awesome! They look so real.

I have a question about Liquid Nails. How is that stuff like when you use it straight? Can you smooth it over a carved foam item to kind of 'hardcoat' it? Also, how long would the straight stuff take to dry? Finally, is the straight stuff waterproof or do you have to paint over it still to get waterproofing?

Sorry for so many questions...


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## IMU (Apr 8, 2009)

The stuff straight out of the can isn’t as thick as it looks. I think it might work if you use a very thin coat but if you put it on too thick, it will ‘run’. I wanted it to keep the texture I added when it was applied, that’s why I added the monster mud.

If you want to just use it as a hard coat, it might work. The can stuff isn’t like the one in the caulking tubes. You can smooth it out fairly well, but you have to keep the object flat (horizontal). On a warm day, it took several hours but you can always set a fan or two in front of it to help it along.

It is water resistant but not water proof. I think you could use a sealer on it and then paint it and should be fine.

Hope that helps, if not ... ask away!


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## Terra (Apr 13, 2009)

Ahh, that helped a lot. Always wondered about the stuff... picked it up at least three or four times at Home Depot. Just never threw in the cart. Thanks so much for the in-depth info  For right now, doesn't sound like it will work for what I need it for_ (really big outdoor foam project)._ Loved the way you used it with monster mud though!


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## Jaybo (Mar 2, 2009)

I have a similar mix that uses PL 300 Foamboard adhesive.



I mix about 1 quart paint, 4 tubes PL300, and two cups of joint compound with a drill. If you mix it at high speed it will whip into a froth like a meringue. At first I was disappointed about the new frothy coating I created, but then I used it on a prop and was pleasantly surprised. All the little air bubbles will pop and leave tons of little holes all over the coating. It gives a great texture when you dry brush the finish.

Another cool thing you can do is add cellulose insulation (basically shredded newspaper) to the mix a little at a time as you run the mixing drill. You end up with a cool clay/dope that can be applied and shaped in all kinds of cool ways. Don't use your bare hands! Use latex or nitrile gloves to protect your hands.

You could probably replace the PL300 with any latex based caulk/adhesive. It's just what I had on hand at the time.


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## Chrysaor (Jun 21, 2009)

This looks awesome, I'm slowly coming around to the idea of wanting to do a pirate theme for Halloween this year :zombie:


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## ELH Erin Loves Halloween (Feb 19, 2009)

IMU thanks for the tutorial on this I want to do this love it!


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