Fence How-To

For several years, I've used a small wooden fence made out of lathe strips but it was small and didn't scale well as the cemetery grew larger (plus it was a safety hazard since the top of the pickets were pointed). So this year, I decided that it was time for my cemetery to have a proper fence.

I knew that I needed 60 ft of fence so I searched the various Halloween forums and websites for something easy and cheap to build. Eventually, I settled on this how-to. It used many of the most common Halloween materials - pvc and wood - so I know I would be comfortable working with it. The idea to use electrical conduit instead of plumbing pipe was a great tip since it is closer in color to what the final piece should look like and it was slightly cheaper than plumbing pipe. A little more investigation led me to a staggered pattern that I really liked, so I decided to incorporate it also.

One problem I had while building the fence was that none of the forums mentioned measurements so I had to come up with my own. From looking at pictures of existing fences, I figured that the height of the long posts was about 3ft. Since the short posts were a little over half the size of the tall posts, I decided that the short posts would be 2ft. This gave me a starting point for actually figuring out what I would need to purchase. To help anyone else out who may be interested in building a fence like this, here is a detailed parts list of what is needed to build one 8ft section of fence.

Tools

• 1" hole saw
• power drill
• dremel rotary tool w/ sanding head
• pvc cutter
• saw
• tape measure

Materials

• 3 - 1x2x8 lumber
• 5 - 1/2" x 8ft electrical conduit
• 40 - 1" wood screws
• 2 - flat black spray paint
• 4 - metal L brackets (optional)
• 8 - #6 x 1/2" wood screws (optional)
• 16 - 3/4" finials

Instructions

1) Mark Location of Post Holes

The first thing you'll want to do is use a tape measure and mark off the hole locations on each piece of 1x2. Measure 3" from one end, mark your first hole, then mark every 6". (You should have a 3" gap from you last hole to the other edge of the 1x2.) Do this for two of your 1x2s.

For your last 1x2, you'll only need half as many holes since only the long posts will need to fit through them. So for this one, you'll need to measure 3" from the edge and make a mark. Then mark every 12" across the wood.

2) Drill the Holes

Using a 1" hole saw, drill holes at each of the marks that you made earlier.

*Tip: If your making more than 8ft of fence - which most people will be - drill the holes for one 1x2 and use it as a template for drilling your other 1x2s. It will save you a lot of time measuring each piece. Use clamps to hold your template in place while you mark your holes.

3) Sand the Holes

Cutting the holes will probably cause splintering around the edges so you'll need to use a dremel tool with a sanding head to take off the splinters.

4) Cut the Posts

Cut 8 - 2ft sections and 8 - 3ft sections of electrical conduit.

5) Assemble the Pieces

Lay out your 1x2s and insert your poles through the holes. Starting at the bottom of the fence, leave 4" of post hanging from the bottom of the 1x2 and insert a screw. Continue along the bottom 1x2 and secure each post. For the middle 1x2, leave 4" of post hanging from the top and secure each short post (don't secure the long posts to the middle 1x2). Do the same for the top 1x2, leaving 4" from the top. At this point, your basic fence is assembled. You'll notice that since you didn't secure the long posts to the center 1x2 that it will rack back and forth. Now that it's assembled, double check that the 1x2s are all even and secure your long posts to the center 1x2.

6) Attach L brackets (optional)

To hold my fence in place, I secured each end to a 3ft 4x4 post. To do this, I added a L bracket to the top and bottom of each end of the 1x2s. (Pre-drill the holes to prevent the 1x2 from splitting.)

7) Paint the Fence

From my experience, it takes about 2 cans of spray paint to cover an 8ft section of fence.

8) Add Finials

I've read a couple of way to fit the finials to the to of the posts. One way is to use a heat gun to soften the top of the post and then pressing the finial down. Another way is to shove one end of a wooden dowel into the finial and the other end into the post. I wasn't fond of either idea because I didn't want to buy a heat gun or dowels. So what I did was use my dremel (with sanding head) and grind off the inside of the finial. This worked really well and was very simple to do (the finials I purchased have a circular ridge on the bottom that I could use as a guide).